DVT VHDL IDE User Guide
Rev. 24.1.5, 13 March 2024

31.6.5 Customizing Default Settings Using dvt.ini

Eclipse Platform supports setting the default preferences for every new workspace. This option is useful in many situations:

  • The user wants to use the same preferences in every new workspace, and using the export/import is an overhead

  • The DVT application administrator wants to put a set of default settings for company wide deployment.

The easiest way to customize the default settings is to set them in clean workspace and save them using the Show Changed Preferences Dialog in the distribution's dvt.ini file.

The required steps to do this are:

  1. Open DVT in a new workspace

  2. Change the preferences

  3. Use the Window > Show Changed Preferences dialog to identify the changed preferences

  4. Add those in the dvt_eclipse/misc/dvt.ini file

Now every new workspace will have those preferences.

31.6.5.1 Show Changed Preferences Dialog

To open the Show Changed Preferences Dialog go to Window > Show Changed Preferences

The dialog allows the user to inspect the modified preferences and save them in a file.

31.6.5.2 Changing the Default dvt.ini

To add new settings to the default settings provided with the distribution and to make them available by default for everyone who starts in a new workspace, the settings saved in the Show Changed Preferences Dialog should be added in the dvt_eclipse/misc/dvt.ini file.

The dvt.ini file already contains some settings as distribution default. The user's settings should be appended to this file.

Some of the default settings already present in the dvt.ini file are:

Name Description
org.eclipse.ui/SHOW_MEMORY_MONITOR=trueEnables the JVM memory monitor.
org.eclipse.ui/ENABLE_ANIMATIONS=falseDisables the minimize/maximize animations.
org.eclipse.ui.editors/lineNumberRuler=trueShows line numbers by default in editors.
org.eclipse.debug.ui/org.eclipse.debug.ui.UseContextualLaunch=falseActivates "Always launch previously launched application.
ro.amiq.dvt/spelling_user_dictionary=$DVT_HOME/misc/dvt_dictionary.txtSets the path to the distribution dictionary for DVT editors.

31.6.5.3 Using a User Customized dvt.ini

After creating a preferences file the user can replace the distribution's dvt.ini file to make them widely deployed or he or she can start DVT with a different file for default settings using the dvt.sh script:

dvt.sh [any other argument] -eclipse_args -pluginCustomization <path_to_settings_file>