Software Bisque Knowledge Base Article – 1240

CHANGING WHERE THESKY’S SETTINGS ARE SAVED

ISSUE

NOTE: This topic refers extensively to TheSky‘s Application Support Files (ASF) folder.

You may choose to use a non-default location or name for TheSkyX‘s ASF folder. This folder contains TheSky’s settings and preferences.

Here are some examples of why you might do this:

• You want to keep TheSky‘s settings on a network drive
• You want to keep TheSky‘s settings on a removable drive that is moved between two computers (e.g. home and observatory)
• You want to share TheSky‘s settings between two or more user accounts on the same computer
• Personal preference

If you’re moving/transferring/duplicating your settings to a different user account, computer, operating system or edition of TheSky, you can use the default ASF folder location and name for that edition and operating system. In this case, rather than the following procedure, see Transferring TheSky‘s Settings.

RESOLUTION

The following procedure can be used to configure TheSky to use a non-default ASF folder location or name. Please see the caution in the tip section at the bottom of this article regarding running multiple instances of TheSky.

Part A

1. Close TheSky if presently running.
2. Optionally move or copy your existing ASF folder to the new location you wish to use. (When TheSky doesn’t find the folder at the location defined after completing this procedure, it will create one with default settings.)

Part B

Mac/Linux:

1. Open TextEdit (Mac), Text Editor (Linux/Raspbian), or a similar text editor.
2. From the File menu, choose New command, and to the new document add the following two lines:(General)UserDataRoot=/<TheSkyX Application Support Files Folder Path> Where <TheSkyX Application Support Files Folder Path> is the desired path, including folder name (don’t include the “<” or “>”). For example, UserDataRoot=/Users/username/Library/Application Support/Software Bisque/TheSkyX Professional Edition   IMPORTANT: Use a single forward slash “/” for each folder separator.
3. Mac only: From the Format menu, choose the Make Plain Text command.
4. From the File menu, choose the Save command, name the file startup.ini (for TextEdit, disable the if no extension is provided, use “txt” option), then click Save.  Note the folder where this file is saved!
5. Close the text editor and open Finder (Mac), Files (Linux), File Manager (Raspbian), or equivalent.
6. Locate the startup.ini file from step 4 and copy it to the clipboard (right click on the file name and choose the Copy command).
7. Open the Applications folder, right-click on TheSkyX <Edition Name Here> application bundle, then choose the Show Package Contents command.
8. Open the Contents folder and paste the startup.ini file into it (right-click within the folder and choose the Paste command).

Windows:

1. Open Notepad or a similar text editor.
2. Create a “new document”, add the following two lines…first line: [General]second line: UserDataRoot=”C:/<TheSkyX Application Support Files Folder Path>”Where C: is the desired drive letter and <TheSkyX Application Support Files Folder Path> is the desired path, including folder name (don’t include the “<” or “>”). For example, UserDataRoot="C:/Users/username/Documents/Software Bisque/TheSkyX Professional Edition"
3. From the File menu, choose the Save command, name the file startup.ini and click Save.  Note the folder where this file is saved!
4. Close the text editor and open Explorer (Windows 10) or File Explorer (Windows 8 and earlier).
5. Locate the startup.ini file from step 3 and copy it to the clipboard (right click on the file name and choose the Copy command).
6. Navigate to TheSky‘s installation folder. For 32-bit Windows, the default location is: C:/Program Files (x86)/Software Bisque/TheSkyX 
7. Paste the startup.ini file into this folder (right-click within the folder and choose the Paste command).

Part C

1. Launch TheSky. If you’re prompted for your name and serial number, a new ASF folder is being created for you; refer to Part A step 2 above if you instead wish TheSky to use your former settings.
2. From the File menu choose the Open command.
3. Note which folder is displayed in the Open window; this should match what you defined above. If it doesn’t, you may have formatted the startup.ini file incorrectly, or not correctly placed it in TheSkyX‘s installation folder.

Tips:

• Several of TheSky‘s settings files include file path definitions; a referenced file cannot be opened by TheSky if its defined path is incorrect (e.g. has changed as a result of relocating the ASF folder). See Transferring TheSky‘s Settings for a procedure to correct these path definitions.
• If TheSkyX does not find the startup.ini file, or that file does not properly define the location of an ASF folder, it will resort to its default location for the ASF folder.
• CAUTION (For Windows, Linux and Raspbian versions only): This procedure to explicitly define the working ASF folder will override TheSky‘s normal behavior when a second (or more) instance is run. Instead of each instance using a separate ASF folder (e.g. with ” 2″ appended to its name), all instances will use the same ASF folder. We do not recommend using an explicitly-defined ASF folder if you anticipate running multiple instances of TheSky.

APPLIES TO

• TheSky First Light Edition
• TheSky Student Edition
• TheSky Serious Astronomer Edition
• TheSky Professional Edition

• This topic was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.
• This topic was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  Thomas Bisque.
• This topic was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.
• This topic was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.
• This topic was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.
• This topic was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by  Daniel R. Bisque.