WintextCom Personal Information Manager(tm) is configured at program startup from a plain text settings file called "wtc.wtc" in the program installation folder. If your computer has more than one user, this settings file provides a base configuration common to all users. Individual users can customise the configuration for themselves only using the command line in their shortcut icons, and by more advanced methods with the registry.

The settings file consists of lines containing zero or more "setup directives". A setup directive is a string of characters that WTC processes to determine features of its operation. A string of one or more setup directives on the same line or in a string of text passed to WTC for configuration processing constitutes a "configuration string". More than one setup directive in the same configuration string should be separated by white space, a single space character being sufficient.

The settings file format would probably be described as arcane. It is not a standard Windows initialisation file format. The philosophy behind it is that each and every setup directive that appears in this file can also be used on the program command line. The directives in the setup file are processed first when WTC starts up, then those on the command line that was used to start the program, if any. Setup directives are processed in the order in which they occur, so if the same directive is used more than once, the last occurrence will determine the corresponding configuration status. This startup procedure makes it possible to override settings in the default configuration or just apply new ones in individual startup shortcuts, by invoking from other applications, by manually executing in the Windows run dialogue, etc. There are some additional options available through the registry and command line that are not supported in the settings file, and the default startup procedure itself can be changed.

The underlying strategy behind the development of WTC settings options, that a setup directive applies to both the configuration file and the command line, requires that the syntax be as brief as possible so as to allow for extensive command line configuration. Hence it is not at all user-friendly, intuitive or mnemonic. It does, however, have the advantage that all options available in the settings file are automatically available on the command line without having to provide separate command line syntax for those options that seem most important. This allows for very extensive command line configuration to run separate instances of the software for totally different purposes. Using a Windows NT script file (.cmd), for example, as many options as required could be set by breaking the code across separate lines. In current versions of WTC, it is now also possible to specify that WTC uses a settings file other than the default, with a full path specification, which also allows for user-specific startup configuration.

If WTC does not find any setup directives to process at startup, its default settings are effective. This is the case on first installation, as there is no default settings file until you create it.

Page url: http://wtcmanual.wintextware.com/index.html?m_settings_file.htm

The Settings File