During the startup sequence of MapTool several properties can be defined on different places. This guide tries to make it a little bit more clear, which can be set where and how.

Startup Properties are properties, you can set only during the startup phase of the application. If you change same, you have to restart the application. There are several reasons for this behavior:

• JVM property: They are for the java virtual machine in where the application is running. Best examples are the memory properties to define the memory usage of the JVM.
• Only on startup relevant: E.g. which campaign is loaded during startup is only relevant during startup
• Complicate to change later: E.g. changing the location of files (e.g. MAPTOOL_DATADIR) during a session is complicated and normally not necessary.

You can set the value of a property on several locations. Since there are no guaranties, that the value of a property is set on only one location or that it has the same value on all locations, there is a clear hierarchy for the priority of a location.

The locations and there priority from high (overwrite) to low (will be overwritten) by higher locations first:

• MapTool Command Line Option
  • When you start the MapTool application, you can start it with optional parameters
  • With -h you can get a list of the current command line options of MapTool
  • E.g. maptool.exe -D=“data dictionary” to tell MapTool where the data dictionary is (should be)
• Startup Property File
  • The standard location & name of this file is startup.properties in the configure subdirectory of the data dictionary of MapTool. E.g. {user.home}/.maptool/config/startup.properties
  • There is an startupExample.properties file with instructions and a list of the currently supported properties at the default location
  • A property is a key value text pair with a '=' or ':' between them
  • E.g. MAPTOOL_DATADIR=“data dictionary”
• JVM Command Line Parameters (-D, -X, …)
  • Correct usage (prefix) unknown
  • Normally you can set the properties from the configuration file (MapTool.cfg) also during the call of the JVM
  • You can see the normal, not usable prefix in the MapTool.cfg file, e.g. -DMAPTOOL_DATADIR=“data directory”
  • MapTool use a launcher to start the JVM so there should be a prefix you have to set before the JVM option
  • This location should only be used if the application has problems to experiment with different setups.
  • Note: with -D parameters you can declare and set system properties
• MapTool.cfg (-D, -X, …)
  • The configuration file of MapTool is in the app subdirectory of the application home directory, e.g. {application home]/app/MapTool.cfg
  • This file is overwritten during an update and holds user specific parameters and inherent application specific parameters together
  • Use the startup property file for user specific parameters
  • This location should only be used if the application has problems to change general setups of the application.
  • Note: with -D parameters you can declare and set system properties
• Default System Properties
  • Most default system properties are dependent values from the operating system (OS) and are set by the JVM
  • e.g. user.home get at the value the path&name of the OS specific home directory of the current user in the OS who starts the application
  • The non standrd system properties will get there default value from the application
• Default Values
  • This values are defined inside the MapTool application to define a fallback value, if needed.

This table should give you an overview about all properties during the startup process.

First try to change the values over the startup tab on the option window. On some OS the MapTool.cfg file is not writeable, so you can not change everything what you can see.
Specially the command line options have to be set directly by yourself.

If you need your own dictionary location(s), best practice would be to set the -P command line option to tell MapTool, what the path & name of the startup property file is and define anything else in that file.
(The data dictonary directory can only be set in the startup properties file, if the startup properties file will be located undependen from the data dictonary!)

If your MapTool application seems to be instable and your OS does not allow the setting of new values over the startup tab on the option window, then go and try to manipulate the MapTool.cfg file.

Try to avoid changes in the MapTool.cfg file, because the file will be overwriten by the next update.

For MapTool Version 1.12.x (under development)