I have a series of user controls which internally contain datasets.  At
run-time, these datasets are loaded from XML documents in the following
manner:

private string _xmlPath = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["XML.Path"];

public UserControl1()
{
  InitializeComponent();
  this._xmlPath = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["XML.Path"];
  string s = Path.Combine(this._xmlPath, "Doc1.xml");
  this.UserControlData.ReadXml(fileName);
}

The problem is that "this._xmlPath" is never properly initialized at
design-time.  I always encounter "Value cannot be null. Parameter:
path1" errors on the Path.Combine function call.

I don't actually need this data at design-time, so I could just not let
this code run in the designers.  But I can't figure out how to tell when
a control is being designed or is being run.  Ideally it should just
work as is, but I cannot get the configuration settings to properly load
at design-time.  (I have an app.config in my project and it has been
subsequently built into an EXENAME.config file in the Debug folder...)

Any ideas?

--Mike