Debug data in the isolated storage is not easy, mango brought out a new tool: ‘ISTools’, but not necessarily easy to use. That’s why I create a plug-in for Visual Studio 2010 (Express version does not support add-ins) to simplify the task, no need to select the target (emulator or phone) and to give the identifier of the project (which is a bit boring to find). I leave Chris Sainty to explain the other concerns :
One of the most useful new tools with the latest Windows Phone SDK is the Isolated Storage Explorer.
It is a command line tool used for downloading and uploading the contents of an application’s Isolated Storage folders to either the Emulator or a Device. There are two times when this is invaluable.
The first is when you are deploying a new version and you do not want to lose the data. Since day one I have been annoyed with the frequency that that deployment mechanism decides to delete the application and reinstall it. By using this tool I never need to worry about that again as I can just save a snapshot, deploy, load the snapshot back in.
The second is when I find a bug with while using a retail copy of my app which I can not hook the debugger into. I can take a snapshot, load it into the emulator and debug.
So here is the add-in ! Simple but effective :
Why use an Add-in ?
SDK Mango has made a new tool called IsolatedStorageExplorerTool, which retrieves data from the isolated storage of your windows phone applications as well as to inject data from your PC to the phone. The only problem is that the tool is not at all easy, here’s what it looks like for example the command line :
ISETool.exe ts xd 11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 "C:\Data\My Files"
Where ts represents an import, xd means « emulator » followed by the identifier of your projectand then the destination directory.
The addin makes it possible to simplify this, it automatically retrieves the identifier of the project and the target (phone or emulator) and remembers the last directory used, you just have to click on the import or export without worrying of it all.
Installation of the Add-In
Download the file here : Isolated Storage Tools
Launch the « ISTools.vsix » file, the following window (ok, I’m *le* french) will be displayed :
Click on install and it’s all !
How use the add-in
When you open your windows phone project, just go to the Tools menu and click on Isolated Storage Tools :
or you can open the ‘display’ menu > other windows > Isolated Storage Tools
Import data
To import the data from the phone, simply click on import, an Explorer window will appear with all the files of the current application:
You can add or delete files, edit them with your favorite editor, etc … and then reinject them back into the phone or the emulator, click the »export » and data from the isolated storage will be replaced by your new data.