Re: User config

Emmanuel Pietriga wrote:
> Graham White wrote:
> 
>>
>> I am attempting to install IsaViz on one of our servers, with
>> the intention that I should set up some defaults (web browser,
>> location of dot executable) which should apply to all of the
>> users. I have tried editing the isaviz.cfg file in
>> the IsaViz home directory, but unfortunately
> 
> 
>> i) this appears to have no effect at all, and
> 
> 
> IsaViz locates the current user's home directory and tries to get an 
> isaviz.cfg file from it. If it fails to find one, it tries to load the 
> one located in IsaViz' main dir.

This is clearly not happening, because, if I modify the isaviz.cfg file
in the IsaViz main dir, and if I don't have an isaviz.cfg file in my
home dir, then, when I launch IsaViz, I get its own (Windows
style) defaults, rather than the ones that I've put into the isaviz.cfg
file in the IsaViz main dir. It's a mystery to me where it gets
them from, but it does.

> I don't know how this fits with what 
> you are trying to do. I'm willing to modify the code so that you can 
> give a command line parameter to say where the CFG file should be loaded 
> from (if that's what you need).


I don't think the IsaViz behaviour makes any sense, and being able to
specify another configuration file on the command line would not help
matters. I think that what should happen is that, *for each
configuration item*, it should look to see whether the user
has a configuration file and whether that item is set
in it, and if that is not the case, then
it should get it from a default file (presumably in the IsaViz main 
directory). This is the way that, for example, the Preferences class
in Java works, or the NextStep/OSX NetInfo system. It makes sense
in the case of IsaViz, because there are configuration items
(such as the location of the dot executable) which ought
to be set system-wide, there are items (such as the web browser) for
which there certainly ought to be a system-wide default but which
the user ought to be able to override, and there are items
(such as the RDF directory) which ought to be set user by user
(though perhaps in this case a default relative to the user's
home directory would be good).


Thanks

Graham White
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> ii) when I start IsaViz for the first time, it stores,
>> in my home directory, an isaviz.cfg file like this:
>>
>> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
>> <isv:config>
>>     <isv:urls/>
>> </isv:config>
>>
>> and the next time it starts up, it complains that the
>> prefix isv is not associated with a namespace.
>>
>> Any thoughts?
> 
> 
> I guess this happens when you launch IsaViz for the first time but do 
> not save your preferences at all. Can you confirm?
> 
> Anyway, this is obviously a bug which I will fix ASAP (meaning within 
> the coming weeks as I have a lot of other things to do these days).
> 
> Thanks for the report,
> Emmanuel
>

Received on Thursday, 4 March 2004 03:31:39 UTC