C# .Net Save a ListView using Settings.settings

Question

I'm trying to save and load the contents of a ListView list using C# .Net. I was hoping to save it by creating a variable System.Windows.Forms.ListView and then populating it with that.

Code snippet for Saving:

Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettings = followerList;
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();

Code snippet for Loading:

if (Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettings != null) {
            followerList = Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettings;
        }

I can't seem to get it to work using that code. Are there any better ways of saving this that is as simple as possible? The list is single column, so an Array should also work, but i'm not sure what is recommended.

Answer 1

ok, I managed to get it working.

Saving:

//Convert the listview to a normal list of strings
var followerList = new List<string>();

//add each listview item to a normal list

foreach (ListViewItem Item in followerListView.Items) {
     followerList.Add(Item.Text.ToString());
}

//create string collection from list of strings
StringCollection collection = new StringCollection();

//set the collection setting (created in Settings.settings as a specialized collection)
Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettingsCollection = collection;
//persist  the settings
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();

And for Loading:

//check for null (first run)
if (Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettings != null) {
    //create a new collection again
    StringCollection collection = new StringCollection();
    //set the collection from the settings variable
    collection = Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettingsCollection;
    //convert the collection back to a list
    List<string> followedList = collection.Cast<string>().ToList();
    //populate the listview again from the new list
    foreach (var item in followedList) {
        followerListView.Items.Add(item);
    }
}

Hopefully that makes sense to someone who found this from a Google search.

Answer 2

if (Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettingsListView == null)
{
    // adding default items to settings 
    Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettingsListView = new System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection();
    Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettingsListView.AddRange(new string [] {"Item1", "Item2"});
    Properties.Settings.Default.Save();
}
// load items from settings 
followerList.Items.AddRange((from i in Properties.Settings.Default.followedUsersSettingsListView.Cast<string>()
                                    select new ListViewItem(i)).ToArray());