How to store contents of a CheckedListBox in My.Settings

Question

I have a CheckedListBox object on a VB 2019 form; each line consists as you might expect, of a checkbox and a string.
I want to save the contents of the lines to My.Settings so they will persist between uses.
The strings are no problem, I presently save them all as a single string with a question-mark separator and use String.Split to build an array of the individual values.
But I don't see an obvious way to store the checkbox settings and tie each to its associated string.
They can be Boolean values, so I can store them as 11000101 etc. matching the order of the strings in the box.
Or I could start each string in the array with a 1 or a 0.
Beyond that, things like custom Objects and Settings Providers seem like overkill.
Am I missing something simple here?

Answer 1

Hi Ron,
you can add in Settings a place holder for string:

And in code behind in Form.Load extract "ClbList" to list of Data, insert Items and in Form.Closing build new list of Data, serialize to XML and save this list in Settings. Try following demo (insert code in empty form):

Imports System.IO  
Imports System.Xml.Serialization  
  
Public Class Form1  
  
  Private Clb As New CheckedListBox With {.Dock = DockStyle.Fill}  
  
  Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load  
    Me.Controls.Add(Clb)  
  
    Dim s As String = My.Settings.ClbList  
    Dim l As List(Of Data)  
  
    ' for first start generate demo data '  
    If String.IsNullOrEmpty(s) Then  
      Dim rnd As New Random  
      l = New List(Of Data)  
      For i = 1 To 10  
        l.Add(New Data With {.CB = rnd.NextDouble < 0.5, .TXT = $"Item {i}"})  
      Next  
    Else  
      ' load data from struing in Settings '  
      l = CType(New XmlSerializer(GetType(List(Of Data))).Deserialize(New StringReader(s)), List(Of Data))  
    End If  
  
    For Each item In l  
      Dim i = Me.Clb.Items.Add(item)  
      Me.Clb.SetItemCheckState(i, If(item.CB, CheckState.Checked, CheckState.Unchecked))  
    Next  
  End Sub  
  
  Public Class Data  
    Public Property CB As Boolean  
    Public Property TXT As String  
  
    Public Overrides Function ToString() As String  
      Return Me.TXT  
    End Function  
  End Class  
  
  Private Sub Form1_FormClosing(sender As Object, e As FormClosingEventArgs) Handles MyBase.FormClosing  
    Dim l As New List(Of Data)  
    For i = 0 To Me.Clb.Items.Count - 1  
      Dim item As Data = CType(Me.Clb.Items(i), Data)  
      item.CB = Me.Clb.GetItemCheckState(i) = CheckState.Checked  
      l.Add(item)  
    Next  
    Dim wrt As New StringWriter()  
    Call New XmlSerializer(GetType(List(Of Data))).Serialize(wrt, l)  
    wrt.Close()  
    My.Settings.ClbList = wrt.ToString  
    My.Settings.Save()  
  End Sub  
  
End Class  

Answer 2

Rather than storing data in MySettings, consider storing data in a Json file.

• See full source in a GitHub repository
• Requires Json.net NuGet package

Form code (there are classes and modules also)

Public Class JsonForm  
    Private Sub JsonForm_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load  
        MonthCheckedListBox.LoadJson()  
    End Sub  
    Private Sub JsonForm_Closing(sender As Object, e As CancelEventArgs) Handles Me.Closing  
        MonthCheckedListBox.SaveToJson()  
    End Sub  
End Class  

For sample data I used month names

[  
  {  
    "Text": "January",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "February",  
    "Checked": true  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "March",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "April",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "May",  
    "Checked": true  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "June",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "July",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "August",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "September",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "October",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "November",  
    "Checked": false  
  },  
  {  
    "Text": "December",  
    "Checked": true  
  }  
]  

Project overview

Answer 3

i have a boyfriend i dont need a house yet i am sorry

Answer 4

Thanks! Will take a closer look at these ideas.
(Except for that last comment, which I don't understand either.)

Answer 5

Thanks to everyone for the responses! (At least the ones I understood.)
I think I may have found a crude-but-effective way I will try first; but if that doesn't pan out, I'll look at the XML and .json alternatives.

It's this:
Presently I store the "name" portion of all the listbox items as a single string in My.Settings separated by the ? character
(which is not allowed in the name), and parse it with String.Split like this:
?banana?peach?pear becomes
banana
peach
pear

What I will try is to make the first character either a 1 or 0 for Checked or Unchecked, like
?0banana?0peach?1pear into
0banana -> unchecked "banana"
0peach -> unchecked "peach"
1pear -> checked "pear"

Seems like that ought to work; if not, I may be back. :-)