How change $AddOnsDirectory
Murray Eisenberg
under Windows XP.
The HelpBrower documentation under "File Layout" seems to say that if I
set a value for $AddOnsDirectory in an init.m file located somewhere on
the ConfigurationPath, that value should be used.
So in [top directory]\Configuration\FrontEnd -- where [top directory] is
the directory containing Mathematica.exe -- I created a file init.m. In
that file I tried, separately, all three of the following:
$AddOnsDirectory="D:/Math/AddOnsMma"
$AddOnsDirectory="D:\\Math\\AddOnsMma"
$AddOnsDirectory=FrontEnd`FileName[{"D:", "Math", "AddOnsMma"}]
None of these seems to have any effect, however: Once I open
Mathematica, the value of $AddOnsDirectory is still its original value,
namely,
"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Mathematica"
--
Murray Eisenberg mur...@math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts 413 545-2859 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street fax 413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305
jmt
directory (hidden directory) in your home directory, containing your
own preferences (i.e. you are not "all users").
This is the place where you can modify the $AddOnsDirectory path.
Murray Eisenberg
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application
Data\Mathematica\FrontEnd\init.m
so that instead of beginning
SetOptions[$FrontEnd,
NotebookDirectory:> ....
it now began with:
SetOptions[$FrontEnd,
$AddOnsDirectory -> "D:\\Math\\AddOnsMma",
NotebookDirectory:> ....
This had no effect on the setting for $AddOnsDirectory! When I
restarted Mathematica, I had the same old value:
$AddOnsDirectory
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Mathematica
And Mathematica rewrote the init.m to move the inserted expression
$AddOnsDirectory -> "D:\\Math\\AddOnsMma" to the end of the file:
PrivateNotebookOptions->{"DoubleBuffer"->True},
SpellingDictionaries->{"CorrectWords"->{"Eisenberg", "Amherst", "umass"}},
$AddOnsDirectory -> "D:\\Math\\AddOnsMma"
]
But still no change in what Mathematica thinks the value of
$AddOnsDirectory is!
So I ask my original question again.
--
John Fultz
$UserAddOnsDirectory via an environment variable, which works for both FE
and kernel.
MATHEMATICA_ADDONS for $AddOnsDirectory
MATHEMATICA_USERADDONS for $UserAddOnsDirectory
Mathematica will append '\Mathematica' to whatever you set, so if, for
example, you do:
MATHEMATICA_ADDONS=D:\Math\AddOnsMma
then the value of $AddOnsDirectory will be...
"D:\\Math\\AddOnsMMa\\Mathematica"
$AddOnsDirectory and $UserAddOnsDirectory in the kernel are intended to be
equivalent to something like $TopDirectory, which is to say that they're
constants derived from the system.
Incidentally, the above is true for all operating systems; it is not
Windows-specific.
Sincerely,
John Fultz
jfu...@wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.
Murray Eisenberg
I do not want to have "Mathematica" automatically appended to the path I
specify! My directory structure has, under D:\Math, several separate
directories for different versions of Mathematica
(D:\Math\Mathematica4.0, D:\Math\Mathematica4.2, etc.)
In order to use all my AddOns (except Standard AddOns), especially
Applications, with all versions of Mathematica -- without having to
maintain multiple copies of these AddOns -- I want a separate directory
D:\Math\AddOnsMma for them (and then have subdirectories Applications,
etc., of that.
With the effect you describe of setting, say
MATHEMATICA_ADDONS=D:\Math\AddOnsMma, then this would force everthing
there to be buried one directory deeper than I want -- into
D:\Math\AddOnsMma\Mathematica.
On the other hand, if I set, say MATHEMATICA_ADDONS=D:\Math, then that
would be obviously (?) undesirable: the directory would be
D:\Math\Mathematica, which is obviously too much like the names of the
top directories I'm using for the different versions of Mathematica itself.
Why in the world was the design decision made to automatically append
"Mathematica" to what those environment variables specified? Is there
some decent way around this?
--
Murray Eisenberg
non-Standard AddOns, e.g., for Applications, is to avoid having to move
all such AddOns each time a new version of Mathematica is released and
I'm ready to abandon an old version.
John Fultz
$AddOnsDirectory won't change from 4.2 to 5.0 to future versions. It's
not clear to me from your email why you're trying to set up separate
directories (the desirability of sharing the AddOns directory between
versions is part of what motivated the design for $AddOnsDirectory in the
first place).
As to the decision to add "Mathematica" afterwards, this has to do with
the fact that we build non-Mathematica products which are based upon the
Mathematica binaries. These products would append their own identity
instead (for example, Calculation Center would append "\CalculationCenter"
afterwards). So one environment variable setting can affect the base
directory chosen for $AddOnsDirectory by all Wolfram products.
Sincerely,
John Fultz
jfu...@wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.
On Mon, 05 May 2003 09:04:07 -0400, Murray Eisenberg wrote:
>Thank you -- but OUCH!
>
>I do not want to have "Mathematica" automatically appended to the path I
>specify! My directory structure has, under D:\Math, several separate
>directories for different versions of Mathematica
>(D:\Math\Mathematica4.0, D:\Math\Mathematica4.2, etc.)
>
>In order to use all my AddOns (except Standard AddOns), especially
>Applications, with all versions of Mathematica -- without having to
>maintain multiple copies of these AddOns -- I want a separate directory
>D:\Math\AddOnsMma for them (and then have subdirectories Applications,
>etc., of that.
>
>With the effect you describe of setting, say
>MATHEMATICA_ADDONS=D:\Math\AddOnsMma, then this would force everthing
>there to be buried one directory deeper than I want -- into
>D:\Math\AddOnsMma\Mathematica.
>
>On the other hand, if I set, say MATHEMATICA_ADDONS=D:\Math, then that
>would be obviously (?) undesirable: the directory would be
>D:\Math\Mathematica, which is obviously too much like the names of the
>top directories I'm using for the different versions of Mathematica
>itself.
>
>Why in the world was the design decision made to automatically append
>"Mathematica" to what those environment variables specified? Is there
>some decent way around this?
>
Murray Eisenberg
user-specified value of MATHEMATICA_ADDONS makes sense: it reduces the
number of environment variables. Of course I see no reason why one
could not have one environment variable for Mathematica itself, another
for Calculation Center, etc. And I still dislike its forcing nesting one
level lower in the directory tree).
As to $AddOnsDirectory and $UserAddOnsDirectory being versionless: yes,
that's obvious. The trouble here is that the default value in Windows
for $AddOnsDirectory is in
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Mathematica
and similarly for $UserAddOnsDirectory. Encouraging users, by default,
to put user-created (or other) applications onto the same drive as the
operating system seems to me to be courting trouble: a safer procedure
is to segregate OS, programs, and data on separate drives (in Windows --
and similarly onto separate partitions with Linux).
Just my 2 cents.
--
John Fultz
hard-coded; they are based upon system queries which point, by default, to
exactly where Microsoft and Apple want them. On Unix platforms, we had to
do a bit of hard-coding based on Unix cultural expectations.
The usage of the particular system call being used under Windows is by
very specific and emphatic Microsoft recommendation. $UserAddOnsDirectory
matches to the user's profile directory which, in some network
environments, is allowed to roam from machine to machine (the equivalent
of a centralized home directory under Unix). This means that you can
install an addon into your user account and be able to access it from any
machine from which you can log into that account. Microsoft feels so
strongly about the issue that they've re-targeted some other common system
defaults applications developers use for this kind of thing to point
inside the user's profile directory under Windows XP (*).
Note also that the default directory targeted by the Open dialog in a
fresh installation is the "My Documents" directory, which sits in the
user's profile. So, Microsoft's solution to the problem you're trying to
solve using multiple drives is to confine all of the data to the profile
directories...the user's profile for user-specific data, the "All Users"
profile in the case of machine-specific, user-generic data.
Sincerely,
John Fultz
jfu...@wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.
(*) MS, incidentally, or at least a few very senior WinXP developers
there, have admitted that the thinking on the profile/home directory issue
was muddle-headed in previous OS's...particularly in the Win9x series of
OS's. But they insist that they've got it right now (a statement with
which I would mostly agree), and proper usage of these directory standards
was right at the top of their recommendations for Windows XP migration.
Murray Eisenberg
on the System Properties control panel, I set
MATHEMATICA_PREFERENCES
to have value d:\Math\AddOns, in both the "User variables for
Administrator" (the account I'm using) and "System variables". This
seemed to have no effect whatsoever! When I start Mathematica (two
different versions), the values are exactly the same as the defaults:
$AddOnsDirectory
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Mathematica
$UserAddOnsDirectory
"C:\\Documents and Settings\\Administrator\\Application Data\\Mathematica"
I also tried d:\\Math\\AddOns, but again with no apparent effect.
--
Murray Eisenberg
rather trivial to change via TweakUI from the Microsoft PowerToys (or
directly by editing the registry).
So on any of the 6 Windows systems I administer, the very first thing I
do is to change My Documents to point to a suitable directory on my data
partition.
John Fultz wrote:
>
> ... the default directory targeted by the Open dialog in a
> fresh installation is the "My Documents" directory, which sits in the
> user's profile. So, Microsoft's solution to the problem you're trying to
> solve using multiple drives is to confine all of the data to the profile
> directories...the user's profile for user-specific data, the "All Users"
> profile in the case of machine-specific, user-generic data.
Murray Eisenberg
to be documented in the Help Browser. At least these do not appear in
the Master Index and are not mentioned in the section on File Layout.
Further, they do not behave quite the way you say. As a system variable
I set
MATHEMATICA_ADDONS
to have value d:\Math\AddOns; as an enviroment variable for
Administrator I set
MATHEMATICA_USERADDONS
to have that same value.
When I start Mathematica afterwards, the values are
$AddOnsDirectory
d:\Math\AddOns
$UserAddOnsDirectory
d:\Math\Addons
-- without any "\Mathematica" appended thereto!
Further, the directory d:\Math\AddOns now has subdirectories
Applications, Autoload, FrontEnd, Kernel, Licensing, SystemFiles. Under
the FrontEnd directory there, there is now a very short init.m
consisting of:
SetOptions[$FrontEnd,
AutoOpenNotebooks->{},
ScreenRectangle->{{0, 1280}, {0, 979}}
]
Still in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application
Data\Mathematica\FrontEnd there is a considerably longer init.m, of the
kind I expect to see, beginning:
SetOptions[$FrontEnd,
NotebookDirectory:>FrontEnd`FileName[{ ...
This is after I held down Shift-Control when restarting Mathematica,
just to be sure preferences are restored to defaults.
So now I'm not only confused by the discrepancy between what you say the
two environment variables do and what happened, but also by the issue of
what kind of preferences are stored in what init.m's where.
I note that the Help Browser _does_ refer to a separate environment
variable MATHEMATICA_PREFERENCES.
--
Kirk Reinholtz
MATHEMATICA_ADDONS
without resorting to this list. My help in "master index" mode does not
find this. A
search on the wolfram.com website in the "search site" box also comes up
empty.
I found a couple described in A.7.1 of the book, neither of which is the
above, and a couple
of others near the documentation for Environment["var"]. Do they all
exist in one place???
Where is this and other such goodies documented???
John Fultz wrote:
>
> As of version 4.2, AddOns are no longer in versioned directories. I.e.,
> $AddOnsDirectory won't change from 4.2 to 5.0 to future versions. It's
> not clear to me from your email why you're trying to set up separate
> directories (the desirability of sharing the AddOns directory between
> versions is part of what motivated the design for $AddOnsDirectory in the
> first place).
>
> As to the decision to add "Mathematica" afterwards, this has to do with
> the fact that we build non-Mathematica products which are based upon the
> Mathematica binaries. These products would append their own identity
> instead (for example, Calculation Center would append "\CalculationCenter"
> afterwards). So one environment variable setting can affect the base
> directory chosen for $AddOnsDirectory by all Wolfram products.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> John Fultz
> jfu...@wolfram.com
> User Interface Group
> Wolfram Research, Inc.
>
> On Mon, 05 May 2003 09:04:07 -0400, Murray Eisenberg wrote:
> >Thank you -- but OUCH!
> >
> >I do not want to have "Mathematica" automatically appended to the path I
> >specify! My directory structure has, under D:\Math, several separate
> >directories for different versions of Mathematica
> >(D:\Math\Mathematica4.0, D:\Math\Mathematica4.2, etc.)
> >
> >In order to use all my AddOns (except Standard AddOns), especially
> >Applications, with all versions of Mathematica -- without having to
> >maintain multiple copies of these AddOns -- I want a separate directory
> >D:\Math\AddOnsMma for them (and then have subdirectories Applications,
> >etc., of that.
> >
> >With the effect you describe of setting, say
> >MATHEMATICA_ADDONS=D:\Math\AddOnsMma, then this would force everthing
> >there to be buried one directory deeper than I want -- into
> >D:\Math\AddOnsMma\Mathematica.
> >
> >On the other hand, if I set, say MATHEMATICA_ADDONS=D:\Math, then that
> >would be obviously (?) undesirable: the directory would be
> >D:\Math\Mathematica, which is obviously too much like the names of the
> >top directories I'm using for the different versions of Mathematica
> >itself.
> >
> >Why in the world was the design decision made to automatically append
> >"Mathematica" to what those environment variables specified? Is there
> >some decent way around this?
> >
John Fultz
list about it. The documentation on this point will hopefully be updated
in the next release.
Sincerely,
John Fultz
jfu...@wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.
John Fultz
On Tue, 06 May 2003 10:54:38 -0400, Murray Eisenberg wrote:
>Under Windows XP, on the Environment Variables tab of the Advanced tab
>on the System Properties control panel, I set
>
>MATHEMATICA_PREFERENCES
>
>to have value d:\Math\AddOns, in both the "User variables for
>Administrator" (the account I'm using) and "System variables". This
>seemed to have no effect whatsoever! When I start Mathematica (two
>different versions), the values are exactly the same as the defaults:
>
>$AddOnsDirectory
>C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Mathematica
>
>$UserAddOnsDirectory
>"C:\\Documents and Settings\\Administrator\\Application
Data\\Mathematica"
The documentation is wrong or, more specifically, outdated on this point.
MATHEMATICA_PREFERENCES was used in 4.1 and earlier versions of
Mathematica, and the documentation wasn't updated on this point. Thus my
email.
>Actually, the location of "My documents" directory under Windows is
>rather trivial to change via TweakUI from the Microsoft PowerToys (or
>directly by editing the registry).
>
>So on any of the 6 Windows systems I administer, the very first thing I
>do is to change My Documents to point to a suitable directory on my data
>partition.
And Mathematica will follow that preference. Since we're using system
calls to follow these directories, we avoid any of the dangers of
hard-coding. My original point was about the philosophy behind
Microsoft's default choices.
I respect your "multiple drive" philosophy, but most people will never use
it (a great many machines only have one drive...my own, in fact, does),
and it's completely inappropriate for certain networked environments (i.e.
the "roaming" profile scenario I mentioned earlier). Mathematica's
defaults must be made to work in the greatest number of environments as
well as possible. So, we choose to follow Microsoft's recommendations;
the environment variable overrides are there for everyone else.
>Further, they do not behave quite the way you say. As a system variable
>I set
:
:
>-- without any "\Mathematica" appended thereto!
Yes, you are right. My oversight...I was describing from a slightly
faulty recollection of my work and not the actual source code I wrote to
do this. Sorry for the confusion on that point.
The code does, in fact, add the product name, but not in the case of an
environment variable override...only in the case of a default selection.
Murray Eisenberg
Do you have a recommendation as to where Wolfram applications be stored
-- under [$TopDirectory]\AddOns\Applications or under
[$AddOnsDirectory]\Applications?
For example, Mathematica distributions come with documentation, only,
for Wavelet Explorer, in
[$TopDirectory]\AddOns\Applications\Wavelets\Documentation\English.
But I have the actual Wavelet Explorer application, which I now have
installed in
[$AddOnsDirectory]\Applications\Wavelets.
Should I remove the documentation in the former location and leave it
just in the latter? In other words, where will the Help Browser look first?
Similar questions arise with respect to Astronomer, Calculus Wiz, etc.
John Fultz wrote:
> You can set the default value of the parent of $AddOnsDirectory and
> $UserAddOnsDirectory via an environment variable, which works for both FE
> and kernel.
>
> MATHEMATICA_ADDONS for $AddOnsDirectory
> MATHEMATICA_USERADDONS for $UserAddOnsDirectory
--
Eric L. Strobel
> That it's not documented is a documentation bug. That's why I mailed the
> list about it. The documentation on this point will hopefully be updated
> in the next release.
Perhaps this is a good candidate for a write up somewhere on the Mathematica
web site? After all, even if folks are willing to wait for the next release
to get the updated docs, not everyone rushes out and gets every update.
- Eric.
--
Eric Strobel (fyzycyst@NOSPAM^mailaps.org)
=====================================================================
*I'd* rather wear fur than go naked!
=====================================================================
Bobby Treat
But seriously, it is possible to find some of this stuff if you have
enough patience and ingenuity.
Look at Help>Getting Started>System-specific Information>File Layout,
for instance. You could find that by exploring the categories, as I
did, or by typing "file" in the browser, pressing "Master Index", and
looking at the entries until you see "File layout".
Type "addons" in the Go To window and press "Master Index". That gets
you to A.8.7, where there's a little more information. Type "user" and
press "Master Index", and that gets you to A.8.5 (user configuration
files). Look in the third panel at the top, and you'll see "File
Organization after Installation".
Help>System Interface seems like a good place to start too, but it
doesn't list these directory variables under Global or System
parameters.
Armed with those clues, maybe you can find what you need.
But don't count on it.
It would help if we could search for words and phrases in the
documentation, rather than just assigned keywords. Keywords are always
inadequate, but if not enough are assigned, they're abysmally
inadequate.
It's really amazing that MATHEMATICA_ADDONS doesn't appear anywhere on
the Documentation site -- where words and phrases CAN be found, by the
way.
Bobby
> Sincerely,
>
> John Fultz
> jfu...@wolfram.com
> User Interface Group
> Wolfram Research, Inc.
>
> >John Fultz wrote:
> >>You can set the default value of the parent of $AddOnsDirectory and
> >>$UserAddOnsDirectory via an environment variable, which works for
both
> >>FE
> >>and kernel.
> >>
> >>MATHEMATICA_ADDONS for $AddOnsDirectory
> >>MATHEMATICA_USERADDONS for $UserAddOnsDirectory
> >>
> >>Mathematica will append '\Mathematica' to whatever you set, so if,
for
> >>example, you do:
> >>
> >>MATHEMATICA_ADDONS=D:\Math\AddOnsMma
> >>
> >>then the value of $AddOnsDirectory will be...
> >>
> >>"D:\\Math\\AddOnsMMa\\Mathematica"
> >>
> >>$AddOnsDirectory and $UserAddOnsDirectory in the kernel are
intended to
> >>be
> >>equivalent to something like $TopDirectory, which is to say that
they're
> >>
> >>constants derived from the system.
> >>
> >>Incidentally, the above is true for all operating systems; it is not
> >>Windows-specific.
> >>
> >>Sincerely,
> >>
> >>John Fultz
> >>jfu...@wolfram.com
> >>User Interface Group
> >>Wolfram Research, Inc.
> >>
> >>
> >>On Sun, 4 May 2003 03:57:04 -0400 (EDT), Murray Eisenberg wrote:
> >>
> >>>How do I supply a permanent new location for $AddOnsDirectory.
This is
> >>>under Windows XP.
> >>>
> >>>The HelpBrower documentation under "File Layout" seems to say that
if I
> >>>set a value for $AddOnsDirectory in an init.m file located
somewhere on
> >>>the ConfigurationPath, that value should be used.
> >>>
> >>>So in [top directory]\Configuration\FrontEnd -- where [top
directory]
> is
> >>>the directory containing Mathematica.exe -- I created a file
init.m.
> In
> >>>that file I tried, separately, all three of the following:
> >>>
> >>>$AddOnsDirectory="D:/Math/AddOnsMma"
> >>>
> >>>$AddOnsDirectory="D:\\Math\\AddOnsMma"
> >>>
> >>>$AddOnsDirectory=FrontEnd`FileName[{"D:", "Math", "AddOnsMma"}]
> >>>
> >>>None of these seems to have any effect, however: Once I open
> >>>Mathematica, the value of $AddOnsDirectory is still its original
value,
> >>>namely,
> >>>
John Fultz
modifying the target install path when running the application pack
installers. We suggest doing this if you want to use applications from
multiple versions of Mathematica (although all of the old behaviors with
$TopDirectory/AddOns/Applications will be preserved for at least a few
major releases to come for backward compatibility).
As new versions of the application packs are released, you'll see the
installer defaults changing to install into $AddOnsDirectory (or
$UserAddOnsDirectory if the user account doesn't have write access to
$AddOnsDirectory) by default.
To your specific question...the full application pack documentation
doesn't come with Mathematica, only the index does (which means that the
only place it makes any difference is in the Master Index). Yes, you can
feel free to delete those if you have the corresponding application pack
installed.
Sincerely,
John Fultz
jfu...@wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.
On Wed, 07 May 2003 08:33:51 -0400, Murray Eisenberg wrote:
>OK, this now works as expected.
>
>Do you have a recommendation as to where Wolfram applications be stored
>-- under [$TopDirectory]\AddOns\Applications or under
>[$AddOnsDirectory]\Applications?
>
>For example, Mathematica distributions come with documentation, only,
>for Wavelet Explorer, in
>
>[$TopDirectory]\AddOns\Applications\Wavelets\Documentation\English.
>
>But I have the actual Wavelet Explorer application, which I now have
>installed in
>
>[$AddOnsDirectory]\Applications\Wavelets.
>
>Should I remove the documentation in the former location and leave it
>just in the latter? In other words, where will the Help Browser look
>first?
>
>Similar questions arise with respect to Astronomer, Calculus Wiz, etc.
>
>