How do I get intellisense in app.config for a custom section?

c# .net configuration app-config custom-sections
Lasse V. Karlsen picture Lasse V. Karlsen · Dec 18, 2008 · Viewed 13.2k times · Source

We have a custom section in my app.config file related to our IoC container class. How can I get intellisense when editing the config file for this section, as well as getting rid of the compiler messages informing me of the missing schema.

I found this question here: app.config configSections custom settings can not find schema information, but I don't understand if it applies to my problem or not, and how to use the answer there if it does.

I also found this page How to get Intellisense for Web.config and App.config in Visual Studio .NET, but it says to remove the xmlns attribute before running the application. Is that really the only/best way?

Here is an example of a simple file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="ServiceContainers"
        type="LVK.IoC.RegistrationsSectionHandler, LVK"/>
  </configSections>
  <ServiceContainers>
    <Registration type="DatabaseConnection" class="DatabaseConnection">
      <Parameter name="connectionString" type="System.String"
          value="TYPE=MSSQL2000;SERVER=localhost;DATABASE=db"/>
    </Registration>
  </ServiceContainers>
</configuration>

Basically I would like to be able to type <R inside the <ServiceContainers> node, and get Registration suggested to me in the intellisense dropdown, as well as the appropriate attributes for it.

Answer

Steven A. Lowe picture Steven A. Lowe · Dec 18, 2008

XML Intellisense will not automatically work for a custom configuration section.

Visual Studio may report warnings on compilation complaining that the attributes of the custom configuration section are not defined. These warnings may be ignored.

If you want XML IntelliSense support for a custom configuration section (or if you just want the 'schema not found' warnings to disappear), add the following line to your DotNetConfig.xsd file immediately after the first <xs:schema ...> line (which is typically the second line in the DotNetConfig.xsd file). 

<xs:include schemaLocation="YOUR_DIRECTORY\namespace.assemblyname.xsd"/>

The DotNetConfig.xsd file can be found in your Visual Studio 8 (or 9) installation directory in the Xml\Schemas subdirectory.

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