SetOMatic 1.0.0.10

SetOMatic

Simple strongly-typed settings manager

About SetOMatic

As Visual Studio has evolved, the built-in SettingsManager library has fallen far behind in functionality. While nearly all other aspects of code development have been integrated into Intellisense and have become strongly-typed, application settings are still only accessible by default as strings which are not visible via Intellisense.

SetOMatic is a simple set of T4 templates that, when added to any .Net Framework project, automatically creates a strongly-typed Settings class that is dynamically loaded with values from App.config or Web.config at runtime.

Why use SetOMatic?

• Strongly-typed application settings help prevent runtime errors by allowing the compiler to check the types at compile time
• As .Net class properties, all settings are available in IntelliSense at design-time, making errors less likely
• Values in the config file are type-checked at first setting access time, preventing invalid settings from falling through the cracks at runtime
• Connection strings are automatically available through the Settings object
• Compiler-checked code is cleaner code. Help the compiler help you!

Features

• Extremely lightweight. SetOMatic adds a single folder and two code files (total of 19kb)
• Automates the importing of all configuration settings into a strongly typed Settings static class
• Automatically loads the current configuration file setting values at runtime into the Settings object
• Allows the use of IntelliSense to reference all application settings
• Provides a connectionStrings child class with all connection strings available
• Seamlessly handles transformed config files since values are loaded at runtime
• Type-checking at application startup makes it easy to catch invalid values
• Having strongly typed settings eliminates the need to cast settings to match the type they are being compared to Example:
  <add name="Active" value="true"/> becomes public bool Active {get; set;}
• The ability to select any setting from IntelliSense greatly reduces the chances of "fat-finger" errors when referencing a setting
• Overall robustness of application code is increased due to fewer opportunities for errors

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