BIRCH Settings

update June 30, 2015

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For technical details on how Settings are implemented in BIRCH, go to SettingsTechnical.html

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Rationale: BIRCH Settings are environment variables that govern how BIRCH functions.

These are set during the initial install, but can be changed using the birchadmin tool.

Customizing Settings:  From the BIRCH Launcher choose File --> birchadmin to launch the Administration Tool. Alternatively, you can launch the Administration tool from the command line by typing 'birchadmin'.

In the Adminstration Tool, choose Preferences --> Settings




To change the value of any setting, change the setting, and click on Save to apply the change.

At present, there is only one Setting available to change. This setting tells BIRCH whether or not you wish to use the BIRCH command line prompt when you open a terminal window. The prompt tells the name of the machine you are logged into, followed by the name of the current working directory.

In the first example, the window opens in user psgendb's home directory. The user changes to a new directory using the cd command to go to the tutorials/bioLegato directory. Note that the prompt changes to show the new directory.

Generally, this is a better choice than the default on most Unix/Linux systems, which usually does not provide any useful information (example shown at right). The main reason for having this setting is that power users often have customized prompts that they prefer, which would be overridden by the BIRCH prompt. By turning off this setting, the prompt reverts to the prompt set in the user's .profile, .bashrc, .cshrc, or other rc file.

Remember to click on Save to apply your change.

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Please send suggestions of comments regarding this page to psgendb@cc.umanitoba.ca