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Craig YellickFlag for United States of America

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Bind textbox to custom property in My.Settings

I need to store a complete set of database connection information in a utility app's settings file. Storing a password in clear text is not acceptable, but the user should not have to worry about that. I have the server, database and user name settings all bound to text controls as usual. When it comes to bind to the clear text password setting, it does not show up in the list (illustrated below).

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Here's my customized settings class. The three code attributes are copied directly from the Settings.Designer.vb file generated for the other simple text settings. I would think this property would show up, but it does not. I re-compiled, closed Visual Studio, re-opened -- nothing.

Namespace My
  Partial Friend NotInheritable Class MySettings
    <Global.System.Configuration.UserScopedSettingAttribute(), _
     Global.System.Diagnostics.DebuggerNonUserCodeAttribute(), _
     Global.System.Configuration.DefaultSettingValueAttribute("")> _
    Public Property Password As String
      Get
        Return Utility.Security.Decrypt(My.Settings.PasswordEncrypted)
      End Get
      Set(value As String)
        My.Settings.PasswordEncrypted = Utility.Security.Encrypt(value)
      End Set
    End Property
  End Class
End Namespace

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If there is a better way to handle this I'm open, but the above is how it ought to work.
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While it'd be nice to get the setting to bind like the others, it's not worth spending a lot of time on it. Option #2 seems safe enough but I did add a line to clear out the clear-text password when saving.

Namespace My
  Partial Friend NotInheritable Class MySettings
    Private Sub MySettings_SettingsLoaded(sender As Object, e As System.Configuration.SettingsLoadedEventArgs) Handles Me.SettingsLoaded
      My.Settings.Password = Utility.Security.Decrypt(My.Settings.PasswordEncrypted)
    End Sub
    Private Sub MySettings_SettingsSaving(sender As Object, e As System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs) Handles Me.SettingsSaving
      My.Settings.PasswordEncrypted = Utility.Security.Encrypt(My.Settings.Password)
      My.Settings.Password = "" ' Do not store cleartext password
    End Sub
  End Class
End Namespace

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