Configuration script files

The Configure tool uses a "script" to tell it what configuration options to capture, how to capture them and where to put them. Here is a simple example illustrating the basic structure of a script file:

<configureScript>
  <type name="integer.type" pattern="[0-9]+"/>
  <type name="yesno.type">
    <alt value="yes"/>
    <alt value="no"/>
  </type>

  <propFile name="test.properties">
    <property name="prop1" type="integer.type"
              description="Enter an integer"
              default="0"/>
    <property name="prop2" type="yesno.type"
              description="Do you want to?"
              default="no"/>
  </propFile>

  <screen title="Testing set 1">
    <item property="prop1"/>
    <item property="prop2"/>
  </screen>
</configureScript>

The main elements of a script are "types", "property sets" and "screens". Lets describe these in that order.

A "type" element introduces a property type which defines a set of allowed values for properties specified later in the script file. A property type's value set can be defined using a regular expression (pattern) or by listing the value set. For more details refer to the "Specifying property types" page.

A "propFile" element introduces a property set consisting of the properties to be written to a given property file. Each property in the property set is specified in terms of a property name and a previously defined type, together with a (one line) description and an optional default value. For more details refer to the "Specifying property files" page.

A "screen" element defines the dialog sequence that is used to request configuration properties from the user. The screen consists of a list of properties, together with (multi-line) explanations to be displayed to the user. For more details refer to the "Specifying property screens" page.

Finally, the "Advanced features" page describes the control properties and the import mechanism.