tkbiff's Configuration File

What is it?

tkbiff does not define its own user interface. The behavior of the user interface is entirely controlled by your configuration file. Controlling the behavior this way is what enables the remarkable flexibility of tkbiff. The configuration is written in Tcl, but most changes are trivial and require minimal knowledge of Tcl. (Why Tcl? Because traditional configuration tools such as xrdb and .Xdefaults, even using GUIs, are not flexible enough because of their limited language. See the FAQ for more on this.)

Where to find the configuration file

The default location of the configuration file is:

UNIX~/.tkbiff (or $DOTDIR/.tkbiff if the DOTDIR environment variable exists)
MacOStkbiff Preferences in the System folder
Windows$(HOME)\tkbiff.cfg (If $(HOME) is not defined, $HOMEDRIVE\$HOMEPATH\tkbiff.cfg is used. If that still provides no useful value, C:\tkbiff.cfg is used.)

You can also ask tkbiff where the configuration file is - useful if you've told tkbiff to get the configuration from elsewhere. Just press <?> and tkbiff will tell you where it is.

From the command line, the default location of the configuration file can be changed using the -cf flag and the new name. Due to the obvious bootstrap problem, there is no way to change the configuration file from within the configuration file itself. However, the same effect may be achieved by creating a trivial script that sets the variable cfile to the location of the true configuration file followed by source tkbiff.

How to Edit the Configuration File

UNIXAny editor will work.
MacOSThe configuration file is too long for simpletext. Just about any other editor seems to work, however.
WindowsWordpad works fine. If the file appears bizarre, it's probably because the end of line characters got corrupted. Use Wordpad which handles them no matter what.

Note that some sophisticated editors (e.g., Word, FrameMaker) don't display the configuration file well because of the embedded tabs but since you're usually just editting a few lines, it's livable. Don't worry about the getting the spaces or tabs just right. tkbiff doesn't care whether you line things up or not.

Understanding the Configuration File

If you're interested in small modifications to the default configuration (such as changing which sound is played and for whom), read the tkbiff GUI page. If you're interested in major modifications or possibly writing your own from scratch, read the tkbiff API page.

How to Make Tkbiff Reread the Configuration File

Using the default bindings, tkbiff will reread the configuration file if you press <Shift-Return>. This will update all the procedures such as announce_new_msg which defines which audio to play for what type of message.

Certain effects (the colors of buttons, whether you are using IMAP/POP, etc.) are initialized once when tkbiff starts. To get tkbiff to change them, tkbiff must be restarted. The simplest way to get tkbiff to reinitialize everything is to kill and restart tkbiff.



Go to tkbiff homepage.
Go to tkbiff documentation.

Last edited: Tue Oct 8 15:49:20 EDT 2002 by Don Libes