DataBinding to App.Settings values

.Net 2.0 introduced this feature which helps to store and retrieve application specific settings very easily.You can easily create Settings through the visual editor.If we want to access them in code we can just use the Properties.Settings.Default object directly.The Default object will have all the properties which we had created at design time.
Showing ConnectionString entry in Messagebox

MessageBox.Show(Properties.Settings.Default.ConnectionString);

It is very easy.Lets learn how this can be binded in to a WPF TextBox.

First make a namespace reference to the Properties namespace.If your application name is WpfApplication1 it is xmlns:props=”WpfApplication1.Properties”.

Then in the Binding set source as the Default property available in the class Settings.Since it is static you have to use the x:Static binding extension.

Finally the path is ConnectionString which is the settings entry name.

Putting it altogether.

<Window
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
x:Class="WpfApplication1.Window1"
x:Name="Window"
xmlns:props="clr-namespace:WpfApplication1.Properties">
<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">
<TextBox  HorizontalAlignment="Left"  VerticalAlignment="Top"
Text="{Binding Source={x:Static props:Settings.Default},Path=ConnectionString}">
</TextBox>
</Grid>
</Window>

So enjoy WPF data binding to Properties.Settings.Default.

More WPF custom control design time experience in Expression blend

Custom category editors

This is a continuation to my older post which described about custom property editors in blend.This post mainly discuss about creating a custom category editor and putting properties into that.

Here I am using more design specific mechanism with separate design time dlls, which was introduced with WPF technology.It helps us to keep our design time code in a separate dll which is suffixed with <assemblyname>.design.dll.You can get more information about the linking process between Control dll and design dll from here .

.

We are going to create a category named MyCategory like this

Steps

1. Create metadata file in the design assembly ie in <customasembly>.design.dll
2. Put the desired property into appropriate category using the category attribute.This is same as of Windows forms
3. Create category editor and set its datatemplate.
4. Use the editor attribute to associate this category editor into the custom control
5. Open the solution in Blend.You can see your category editor

The new category with full customization

Some points to consider

• Make sure that the design dll and application(which is using our custom control) is refering the same custom control assembly dll.Otherwise this wont get opened in blend.

For more details refer the sample here