Squeak: Win32 Ini File Settings

Win32 Ini File Settings

The Win32 VM creates a file named Squeak.ini when it first starts. This file contains a variety of settings (mostly preferences) which should be preserved across sessions.

The name of the ini file always matches the name of the VM, which allows for having different preferences in different VMs. For example, a VM named "Squeak.exe" will look for "Squeak.ini" whereas a VM named "Hanoi.exe" will look for "Hanoi.ini".

Preferences

All of the persistent Win32 VM Preferences are stored under [Global] section of the ini file. They are:

DeferUpdate - Preference "defer display updates"
ShowConsole - Preference "show console"
DynamicConsole - Preference "show console on errors"
ReduceCPUUsage - Preference "reduce CPU usage"
ReduceCPUInBackground - Preference "reduce background CPU usage"
1ButtonMouse - Preference "1 button mouse"
3ButtonMouse - Preference "3 button mouse"
PriorityBoost - Preference "thread priority boost"
UseDirectSound - Preference "use DirectSound"
B3DXUsesOpenGL - Preference "use OpenGL (instead of D3D)"
CaseSensitiveFileMode - Preference "case sensitive files"

Security Settings

Entries appearing under the [Security] section of Squeak.ini control some of the sandbox functionality of Squeak

UserDirectory - Identifies the sandbox directory, e.g., a place which can be accessed from any (potentially unsafe) Squeaklet. By default it is set to "C:\My Squeak\%USERNAME%" but if this location is either read-only or simply inconvenient (for example in a network setup) this is the place to change it.
NOTE: Up to and including the 3.5.1 VM environment variables will NOT be expanded correctly.
SecureDirectory - Identifies a safe place for the VM to store security relevant data. By default this is set to the VMs locations but if the VM location is read-only you may wish to change it.

From a running Squeak image, these locations can be retrieved by evaluating

 SecurityManager default untrustedUserDirectory.
 SecurityManager default secureUserDirectory.

Deployment Settings

In addition to the above the ini file can contain the following entries in the [Global] section.

WindowTitle: This entry allows you to override the default label shown in the Window's title bar. This is useful when you want to ship an application and not display the default "Squeak! (C:\Squeak\Squeak.image)" title.
ImageFile:This entry allows you to specify a specific image file to use when the user double clicks on the VM. This option is for shipping apps where you want to give the user the impression that there is an app which has the name of the VM rather than a VM/image pair. The name of the image does not have to end with .image. In addition, the name can be either given in relative or absolute form. If the name is relative (e.g., does not start with a drive letter) then it is assumed to be relative to the VM directory.

Custom short cuts:

EnableF2Menu: This entry allows you to determine whether the preference menu should be shown when pressing F2. The default is 1 (true).
EnableAltF4Quit: This entry allows you to specify whether Alt-F4 (and the windows close button) should be honored or not. The default is 1 (true).
New for 3.10.8:When this setting is disabled (0), the VM generates a window close event instead which can be handled by the image.

Quit menu:

QuitDialogMessage: This entry allows you to specify what message to display upon the Alt-F4 quit dialog.
QuitDialogLabel: This entry allows you to specify what label to display upon the Alt-F4 quit dialog.

Splash screen settings:

SplashScreen: The file name for the initial splash screen (the default is to use splash.bmp).
SplashTitle: The title to use for the splash screen window (this is the title you see in the Windows task bar). Should usually be the same that is provided via WindowTitle.
SplashTime: The minimum amount of time to display the splash screen. If the system starts faster than the amount provided here, it will wait until at least the minimum amount of time has passed. The value is provided in milliseconds.

Single Instance Settings:

RunSingleApp: When non-zero, only one instance of the VM will be run. A second attempt to launch the app will cause the first instance to be activated. When double-clicking on a file associated with the VM, the document file will be delivered as drop event to the running instance. This is consistent with the Mac behavior when trying to launch multiple documents with the same VM.
WindowClassName: The name for the window class to be used by the VM (something like "MyAppMainWindowClass"). The VM will only consider windows with this class name when determining whether the app already runs or not. This allows the VM to disambiguate different applications using the Squeak VM.

Examples

This sets the window title to "The Towers of Hanoi":

     [Global]
     WindowTitle="The Towers Of Hanoi"

This sets the image file to use "hanoi.data":

     [Global]
     ImageFile="hanoi.data"

Alternatively, this will use an image file called hanoi.data which must be in the "data" sub-directory of the VM directory:

     [Global]
     ImageFile="data\hanoi.data"

And this will use the image file hanoi.data from the given absolute location:

     [Global]
     ImageFile="C:\The Towers Of Hanoi\hanoi.data"

The following will disable, both the F2 preferences menu and the Alt-F4 quit dialog (in which case your only way to quit Squeak is via "Smalltalk quitPrimitive"):

     [Global]
     EnableF2Menu=0
     EnableAltF4Quit=0

And this is an example to customize the Alt-F4 quit dialog accordingly:

     [Global]
     QuitDialogMessage="Do you really want to quit the game?"
     QuitDialogLabel="The Towers of Hanoi"

The following shows the use of a custom splash screen for the towers of hanoi for at least two seconds:

     [Global]
     SplashScreen="towers.bmp"
     SplashTitle="The Towers of Hanoi"
     SplashTime=2000