Programming guideline of WinDom

The configuration file

Location of the configuration file

The configuration file is a file 'windom.cnf' or '.windomrc' ifyour file system supports the long file name. This file can be placed in the following directories :

the application directory,
the $HOME\Defaults directory,
the $HOME directory,
the $ETCDIR directory,
the $PATH directories (can be multiple),
the 'C:\' directory

The application directory allow to have a direct configuration of your application when a user install a first tilme your application.

The $HOME directories allow a personnal configuration in a multi user environnement.

The $ETCDIR directories allow WinDom appolication to live happily in an UniX-like file system organization. Perhaps it is better to read directly in the U:\ETC (or /etc) directory, i don't know, i'm waiting for users feedbacks.

Where applications are defined

First of all, commented lines begin by the '#' character. Example:

windom.version = true

The settings of an application are grouped in the same place between two special keywords: the application tag and the end tag. An application tag is just the application name (with higher characters) between brackets. Example:

[WINCONF] # begin of the configuration area of WINCONF application
# body of the application configuration
[end]     # end of configuration

Because a configuration addresses a specific application, it could be interesting to have a global settings addressing all applications. It is possible with the special tag [Default Settings]. An application not defined in the configuration file will read its settings in this area.

Variables

The syntax of a variable definition is really simple :

keyword = value [, value, ...]

Notice that a space character is required just behind the '=' character (it's a bug :(). The keyword is called too a variable.

Variables have a hierarchical structure. A name of variable is a list of group name, separated by a '.' character. Each group represents a thematic set of variables. Example, the variable

windom.event.keybd

is a 'windom' variable (i.e. a variable used by window) from the 'event' group of variables dedicated to handle the GEM events and it have the name 'keyboard' because it addresses the keyboard events. This orgazination is just a convention. By convention, the variables addressing the application begin by the application name :

myappli.window.save

From WinDom of May 05 1998, the WinDom variables have change their name. Few applications use this old version of WinDom. However WinConf is able to handle these old variables.