Argos User Manual
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Chapter 14. Preferences

Argos has a preferences file. It is through this preferences file that you configure Argos and that Argos makes certain options you make persistent from one Argos session to the next. An example of the former is the two preferences, :save-as-append-without-asking ; an example of the latter is Shift-<Show Absolute Packet Size Bars> . When this operation is invoked, Argos will not only carry out Show Absolute Packet Size Bars but also set the :show-absolute-packet-size-bars-p preference to :yes.

Argos has many preferences, each with a default value. Only preferences whose current values are different from their default values are saved out into the preferences file when you quit Argos.

Argos's preferences file is named preferences. On MS Windows computers, this file is in the Argos directory in the directory specified by the APPDATA environment variable. To see the current value of the APPDATA environment variable, enter 

set APPDATA

or 

echo %APPDATA%

in a Command Prompt window. On a UNIX-based computer, the HOME environment variable is always defined and your preferences file is in the .argos directory in your home directory.

Preferences and their values are specified in your preferences file in a format very similar to but simpler than that of HTML, SGML, or XML. Instead of wordy start and end tags, Argos uses open, "(", and close ,")", parentheses. For each open parenthesis, there is a matching close parenthesis. The preferences file starts with an open parenthesis and ends with a close parenthesis with preferences and their values specified in between. A preference and its value are specified in the following format from left to right:

  1. One open parenthesis,

  2. Zero or any number of spaces,

  3. The preference (case doesn't matter),

  4. One or more spaces,

  5. A period,

  6. One or more spaces,

  7. The value,

  8. Zero or any number of spaces, and

  9. One close parenthesis.

For example, the shortest specification for setting the :screen-width-mm preference to 304 millimeters is 

(:screen-width-mm . 304)

Here is a real preferences file saved out by Argos: 

(
(:SCREEN-WIDTH-MM . 331.5)
(:SCREEN-HEIGHT-MM . 207.0)
(:PDF-SATURATION . 0.99)
(:BROWSER . :GALEON)
(:CONSOLE-OUTMOST-TOP . 1)
(:SCENEGRAPH-LEFT . 1)
(:SCENEGRAPH-TOP . 383)
(:PAINT-PALETTE-LEFT . 146)
(:PAINT-PALETTE-TOP . 629)
(:TRELLIS-PANEL-ORDER . :TABLE)
(:EXPORT-DATA-FORMAT . :OTHER)
(:EXPORT-DATA-SEPARATOR . #\;)
(:SOM-NROWS . 2)
(:SOM-NCOLS . 2)
(:K-MEANS-NO-OF-CENTERS . 9)
(:HISTOGRAM-DEFAULT-NBINS . 26)
(:DEFAULT-PLOT-WIDTH-MM . 100)
(:TRELLIS-PAGE-SIZES (:|2x6| 215.21602 . 84.09375) (:|4x3| 158.23946 . 159.9075) (:|5x5| 155.39063 . 137.39624))
(:PETRIFY-LAST-PATHNAME . "/home/malone/cells/")
)

As you can see, Argos prints out a preference and its value in a row of their own to facilitate easy reading. However, this format of one pair (preference & value) per row is not necessary for Argos to parse your preferences file. Argos will parse the following without any problem: 

((:SCREEN-WIDTH-MM . 331.5)(:SCREEN-HEIGHT-MM . 207.0)
(:PDF-SATURATION . 0.99) (:BROWSER . :GALEON) (:CONSOLE-OUTMOST-TOP . 1) 
(:SCENEGRAPH-LEFT . 1)(:SCENEGRAPH-TOP . 383)(:PAINT-PALETTE-LEFT . 146)
(:PAINT-PALETTE-TOP . 629) (:TRELLIS-PANEL-ORDER . :TABLE) 
(:EXPORT-DATA-FORMAT . :OTHER)(:EXPORT-DATA-SEPARATOR . #\;)(:SOM-NROWS . 2)
(:SOM-NCOLS . 2)(:K-MEANS-NO-OF-CENTERS . 9)(:HISTOGRAM-DEFAULT-NBINS . 26) 
(:DEFAULT-PLOT-WIDTH-MM . 100)(:TRELLIS-PAGE-SIZES (:|2x6| 215.21602 . 84.09375) 
(:|4x3| 158.23946 . 159.9075) (:|5x5| 155.39063 . 137.39624)) 
(:PETRIFY-LAST-PATHNAME . "/home/malone/cells/"))

You are advised to use the format of one pair per row.

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