StrataFrame Forum » .NET Forums » General .NET Discussion » How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Edhy Rijo — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:46:22 GMT

Hi,

In all projects I have tables like CompanySetup or WorkstationSetup where I save user/application settings, in my VFP applications I made heavy use of the _SCREEN.oSetup or _SCREEN.oWorkstation custom properties to hold the values for those tables using the VFP command SCATTER NAME _SCREEN.oSetup.

In .NET/SF what would be the recomended way to create/have the same functionality of that data and make all those properties available anywhere in the application, like reports, forms, etc.?

Thanks!

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Greg McGuffey — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:46:22 GMT

Very cool! That's what I was talking about! Actually Charles Hankey got me thinking this way a while back, so thanks to him for the initial idea too. :D

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Edhy Rijo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:11:15 GMT

[quote][b]Greg McGuffey (02/26/2009)[/b][hr]Does that makes sense?[/quote]

Yes, thanks. I did make sense and I got it done in no time, here is the resulting code:

[codesnippet][code]

Imports CardTrackingSystem.Business

Public MustInherit Class AppSettings

Private Sub New()

End Sub

'-- Set the Company Setting Object

Private Shared _company As bizCompany

Public Shared Property Company() As bizCompany

Get

Return _company

End Get

Set(ByVal value As bizCompany)

Dim loBO As New bizCompany

loBO.FillAllRecords()

_company = loBO

End Set

End Property

'-- Set the Workstation Setting Object

Private Shared _workstation As bizWorkstation

Public Shared Property Workstation() As bizWorkstation

Get

Return _workstation

End Get

Set(ByVal value As bizWorkstation)

Dim loBO As New bizWorkstation

loBO.FillAllRecords()

_workstation = loBO

End Set

End Property

End Class

[/code][/codesnippet]

Now I can reference the properties anywhere like this:

[codesnippet][code]

AppSettings.Company.CompanyName = String.Empty

AppSettings.Workstation.WorkstationName = String.Empty

[/code][/codesnippet]

Of course I have not tried this on reports yet, but there should be no problem :hehe:

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Greg McGuffey — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:32:36 GMT

[quote]..., but in the shared class how would I loop trough the BO properties to create properties with the same name as the BO and assign their values to the newly created shared properties?[/quote]

No need to do this at all. The shared properties of the global class ARE BOs (instances of them).

From my example:

[codesnippet]Settings.App.Theme[/codesnippet]

[b]Settings[/b] is the global class used to access all settings.

[b]App[/b] is a shared property of type AppBO (which was built by the BOMapper and stores app specific settings).

[b]Theme[/b] is a strongly typed property that access the underlying data, via AppBO (it's a data property of the BO...built by BOMapper).

To add a new setting, you update your db (however that works for you), open the BOMapper, configure the new field and rebuild the partial...boom, a new property is available. :D

Does that makes sense?

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Edhy Rijo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:22:20 GMT

[quote][b]Peter Jones (02/26/2009)[/b][hr]Hi Edhy,

Yes, we went down the standard set of BO's road. We load them at init time in all programs into a class called clsRunTimeEnvironment and the running program just calls in and picks up whatever it wants out of that class.

Cheers, Peter[/quote]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the info, but are you manually creating all shared properties in your clsRunTimeEnvironment? or is there a way to loop the BO properties to create and assign the values into clsRunTimeEnvironment properties?

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Peter Jones — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:13:52 GMT

Hi Edhy,

Cheers, Peter

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Edhy Rijo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:39:07 GMT

Thanks Greg,

I like the idea, specially since having the BO with strong typed properties it is easier to maintain, but in the shared class how would I loop trough the BO properties to create properties with the same name as the BO and assign their values to the newly created shared properties?

I guess so sort of reflection here should be use? :cool:

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Greg McGuffey — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:09:54 GMT

I've been thinking about this and I'm thinking that the way to go is to have BOs for the various settings (like general app, company settings, user settings, whatever). You could load the BO from an xml file using XMLBasics or from a db table.

Then have a shared class called Settings (or something like that) that had shared properties for each of the BOs that actually manage the settings. The BO manages actually loading/saving settings, but access is very easy via the shared class:

[codesnippet]'-- Get some setting...Say how much verbage they want in messages!
Settings.User.Verbosity
'-- Or some app setting...Say the theme to use
Settings.App.Theme[/codesnippet]

The actual settings are thus strong typed. Using the BO mapper allows easy changes to the settings. You would then provide a shared method to load the settings, which could use FillMultipleDataTables, called from InitApp (I think that is what it is called) of AppMain.vb or Program.cs.

I haven't had a chance to try this for real, but sure looks appealing.

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Edhy Rijo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:24:33 GMT

Thanks, I know remember seeing something like that in StrataFlix, will investigate more.

RE: How to use Global Properties for preference settings in .NET

Trent L. Taylor — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:00:13 GMT

This is the purpose of static or shared properties and classes. They are far better than global variables as they take no overhead unless they are referenced. You can add a static property to any class. Generally we have a class dedicated to items such as this. But in the StrataFlix sample I know there is a basics class or something along those lines.

[codesnippet]Public Class MyClass

Private Shared _MyProperty As MyObject
Public Shared Property MyProperty As MyObject
    Get
        Return _MyProperty
    End get
End Property

Public Shared Property MySecondProperty As String
    Get
       Dim r As String = ""
       Using bo As New MyBo()
             bo.FillWithData()

             If bo.Count > 0 Then r = bo.MyBOProperty
       End Using
    End Get
End Property

End Class[/codesnippet]

That should give you a few ideas and examples of how to use static (or shared in VB) properties.