Application Settings

As some applications get more sophisticated, users expect more from all their applications. For example, some applications let users set fonts and colors and all kinds of crazy things (guaranteeing that you'll never be able to successfully test every combination). In addition to the other fancy user interface (UI) features that it provides, WinForms supports the idea of reading a control's properties from an application's configuration file, also called a .config file.

.NET allows every application to have a .config file associated with it. For example, when .NET loads MySecondApp.exe, it will look for a corresponding MySecondApp.exe.config file in the same folder as the application.

A .config file can have standard settings ...

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