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Managing Dynamic Website Settings Persisted in a Database

Asked 2012-04-04T17:36:46.343
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I am trying to create something to hold global site-wide settings in our ASP.NET website - things such as site name, google analytics account number, facebook url etc... The site can have multiple ‘brands’ or sub-sites associated with it, hence the sitguid column, we would also like to have the option to put them into groups, hence the group column – e.g. TEST and PRODUCTION (set via web.config appsetting).

I do not want any of the KEY’s to be hardcoded anywhere, but I would like to be able to reference them as simply as possible in code, e.g. SiteSetting.getSetting(“SiteName”) (these may be used in templates (masterpages and such) that more junior devs will create)

I would also like to be able to administer the existing settings in our admin console and to be able to create new settings.

The datatype column is for the edit form so that the correct input element can be used, e.g. checkbox for bit types, text box for varchar etc...

SiteSettings database table currently:

  [sts_sitGuid] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL, -- tells us which site the setting is for
  [sts_group] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL, -- used to group settings e.g. test/live
  [sts_name] [nvarchar](max) NULL, -- the display name of the setting, for edit forms
  [sts_alias] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL, -- the name for the setting
  [sts_value] [nvarchar](max) NOT NULL, -- the settings value
  [sts_dataType] [nvarchar](50) NULL, -- indicates the control to render on edit form
  [sts_ord] [tinyint] NULL,  -- The order they will appear in on the admin form

I am part way through having this working at the moment, but I am not happy with the way I have done it and would like any advice people here have that might help find the ‘right’ solution! I'm sure people have done this before me. (I would share what I have so far, but do not want to skew the answers in any particular way) All i'm looking for is an overview of how this might be best done, no

c# asp.net architecture
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I would use xml, make a class that can take xpath as your "key"
Ex. MySett.get("//level1/mysetting") or even MySett.get("//mysetting")

where each one can return a collection, just the first one, or what ever you want. You could even overload. I like xml because of it's great flexability, and to reduce code elsewher, just write a class. Downside, You need to load your document at application startup and save at shutdown. Here is an example class in vb code. (c code would still be very similar, I just used vb because it was up at thetime

Imports System.Xml
Public Class XSett
Public xml As XmlDocument
Public Overloads Function gett(ByVal xp As String)
    Return CType(xml.SelectSingleNode(xp), XmlElement).InnerXml
    'by using inner xml, you can have either text setting 
    'or more markup that you might need for another function
    'your choice.  you could even cast it into another instance
    'of this class
End Function
Public Overloads Function gett(ByVal xp As String, ByVal sel As Integer)
    Return CType(xml.SelectNodes(xp)(sel), XmlElement).InnerXml
    'here, you can have multiple and choose the one you want
End Function
Public Overloads Sub gett(ByVal xp As String, ByRef col As Collection)
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim nds = xml.SelectNodes(xp)
    For i = 0 To nds.Count - 1
        col.Add(CType(nds(i), XmlElement).InnerXml)
    Next
    'Creted an entire collection of elemens.
    'i used vb's "collection" object, but any collection would do
End Sub
Public Overloads Sub sett(ByVal ap As String, ByVal name As String, ByVal data As String)
    'assume add here.
    'ap asks for existing parent element. eg: //guids
    'name ask for name of setting element
    Dim ts = xml.CreateElement(name)
    ts.InnerXml = data
    If ap = "" Then 'we assume document element
        xml.DocumentElement.AppendChild(ts)
    Else
        Dim p = CType(xml.SelectSingleNode(ap),
answered 2012-04-10T16:57:44.843

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