In the later versions of DotNetNuke 5.x, the class DotNetNuke.Entities.Host.Host exposes most (if not all) of the host settings as strongly typed shared (static) read-only properties. For example:

Dim hostSpace As Double = DotNetNuke.Entities.Host.Host.HostSpace

In order to access the host settings dictionary via the HostController class you must first create an instance of the HostController class, for example:

Dim hostSettings As Dictionary(of String, String) = DotNetNuke.Entities.Host.HostController.Instance.GetSettingsDictionary()
Dim hostSpace As Double = Double.Parse(hostSettings("HostSpace"))   'note - add error handling for parse exception or use TryParse

The HostController class also exposes a number of shared methods to return strongly typed value for a single settings key, for example:

Dim hostSpace As Double = DotNetNuke.Entities.Host.HostController.Instance.GetDouble("HostSpace", 0.0#)

Note that the last parameter is the default value to be used should the setting be missing from the dictionary.

In general, you should access the highest level API which meets your needs to reduce the change of later versions breaking your code. This would suggest that accessing host settings via the shared read-only properties of the Host class is generally the best approach.

Regarding your comment on the conflicting information on deprecated/obsolete methods - I agree they can be confusing and sometimes circular or in some cases such as the one for Host.GetHostSettingsDictionary saying that it is replaced by HostController.,GetHostSettings Dictionary() - which does not exist. Should have been HostController.GetSettingsDictionary().

Much of the code that I write makes heavy use of core API's such as this - although I do not recommend developing within a source package install of DotNetNuke, I find it helpful to do a separate install of the source package for the version my extension will target and keeping its solution open in a separate instance of Visual Studio so I can quickly look at the source code to answer questions such as yours.

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Bill, WESNet Designs
Team Lead - DotNetNuke Gallery Module Project (Not Actively Being Developed)
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