QWIN.INI and user .ini Files

QWin and the QVCS command line utilities use qwin.ini to define users, projects, project locations, and other project settings.

If you have QVCS installed in several different directories, each separate directory containing QVCS executables must also contain a copy of qwin.ini. The copy of qwin.ini that is in the same directory as QVCS executables is the qwin.ini that defines the projects and project settings for those utilities. QVCS utilities that live in a different home directory use the qwin.ini that lives in the same directory that they occupy. This makes it possible to have a variety of different views of projects that you develop.

Simplicity suggests keeping just a single QVCS executable directory, but it's important to understand that each separate QVCS executable directory uses a separate qwin.ini.

Understanding the contents of qwin.ini is straightforward. Like most .ini files, qwin.ini is separated into sections: The [Users] section and the [Projects] section. As you define projects, QWin makes entries for those projects in the [Projects] section, and creates new sections for each new project.

The contents of the .ini files are generally maintained from the Admin→Preferences... dialog in QWin. The explanations that follow describe the meanings of the contents of the .ini files, however, you should use the QWin preferences dialog to make changes to the contents of the .ini files.

[Users]

The [Users] section lists each user known to QWin. The user name is simply the name that you wish QWin and QVCS to know you by. By default, your QVCS user name is the same as your Windows user name. An optional password appears to the right of the = sign. The password is mangled using a simple XOR scheme (don't think that it's secure!) when it is stored within qwin.ini. A defined password is only used if your QVCS user name is different than your Windows user name. QWin allows you to maintain the list of users using the Maintain Users dialog accessible from the Admin→Maintain Users... menu item. You can modify your password from the Admin→Change Password... dialog.

[Utilities]

The [Utilities] section (located separately in each user's .ini file) defines two utilities for QWin. The first, defined by the "VisualCompare" keyword, defines the visual compare utility that QWin will try to use when you select the File→Compare... menu item or click on the Compare toolbar button. The hard-coded default is the Windiff utility. Windiff ships with Microsoft's C++ compiler. To define an alternate visual compare utility, enter it here, or use the Utilities tab of the Admin→Preferences... dialog, where you can enter a visual compare utility command line. Note that you must include the "%s"'s on the command line, since QWin uses the string you define here to construct the file compare command line.

The ViewRevision utility defines the utility you want QWin to use to view a file or revision if it turns out that there isn't another tool associated with the file extension of the file. By default, QWin will use Notepad.exe in those circumstances. If you have a different, more capable editor that you'd rather QWin use, you can define it here, or using the Utilities tab of the Admin→Preferences... dialog. From the Preferences dialog, you can also set file extensions for which you'd prefer QWin to use the utility defined here, rather than the program Windows associates with that extension.

[Projects]

The [Projects] section defines the Projects that appear in the tree control pane of QWin. Each separate project is represented by a separate line in the [Projects] section. On that line, the project name is defined to the left of the = sign, and the location of the QVCS archive files for the project is defined to the right of the = sign. Normally, you never edit the [Projects] section directly. Instead you create and edit entries here via the Project→New→New Project and Project→Edit Settings... menu commands.

Each separate project defined in the project section has its own separate section within qwin.ini where settings unique to that project are defined; each project defined in qwin.ini "inherits" from the [QVCS Projects] project. Only those project settings that are different from the [QVCS Projects] are recorded in the separate project sections of qwin.ini. In addition, each user for a given project will have a project section in their .ini file to capture their work file location for that project.

The [QVCS Projects] section defines the default "QVCS Project". It defines the master project settings that all other projects inherit by default. You edit the [QVCS Projects] by selecting its node in the tree control, and then selecting the Project→Edit Settings... menu command. Typically, you'd define your Access List here, where to find temporary files, and a few other defaults.