Technical Note #1400

Internal Guide to the SETTINGS.INI (formerly HIGHWAY.INI)  file

Application affected: Highway 101 Date Created: 7/19/96
Version Number: 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0x Last Modified: 7/2/97
File Date(s): All Created By: Mike Rimov
Type of Note: Tech Guide Related Info: TN 1401
 
Keywords: guide highway settings.ini settings ini configuration file

Summary: On some occasions, you may find it necessary to edit the SETTINGS.INI file directly, to correct user errors. This tech guide is provided as an insight into the entries found in the SETTINGS.INI file. Additional related information can be found in Tech Note #1401

Note: In early versions (Prior to 3.01), the configuration file was called HIGHWAY.INI.
Details:
Below is a sample configuration of a typical settings.ini file:
 

Sample of SETTINGS.INI:

[DIRECTORIES]
Button0=/rna BigISP Net
Button1=D:\HIGHWAY\NETSCAPE\NETSCAPE.EXE
Button2=C:\WINDOWS\TELNET.EXE
Button3=C:\HIGHWAY\MAIL\EUDORA.EXE
[QUICKTIPS]
Button1=Internet Explorer
Button2=Telnet for Windows 95
Button0=Dial-Up Networking Entry
[STATE]
Button1=1
Button2=1
Button0=0
[SETTINGS]
LOCTOP=0
LOCLEFT=5505
;TOOLBAR STYLE=0=Large Toolbar, 1=Small 
Toolbar
TBSTYLE=0
TBTIPS=1
ONTOP=1
WINSOCKAUTOSTART=1
CLOSEONEXIT=1
Portable=0
WSStack=Win95
[Configurations]
..
[Available Phone Numbers]
..
[Locations]
Loc1=Default Location,753-3588
[Current Site]
..
[Registration]
..
[Dialer Signal]
..
[AutoRun]
Program0=Telnet for Windows 95
Program1=*EOF*

Description of the Components:

[DIRECTORIES].
These start with the format Button0, Button1, Button2, etc.
Button0
Represents the application that is launched when Highway 101 is started, normally your winsock stack.

Button1
Represents the Leftmost button on the toolbar, Button2, the next one to the right, etc. For aesthetic purposes, there should be at least Button1 - Button3 existing, or the toolbar will tend to look a bit convoluted.

Also be aware that although physical order in the INI file does not matter in this section, the numbering does. If there is a skip in the numbering sequence, then Highway 101 will assume that it has reached the end of the buttons that it is supposed to read and will stop there. Buttons will appear to be missing.

To further clarify this, the following sequence will cause four buttons to appear: 

Button1=
Button4=
Button2=
Button3=
But the following sequence will only have one button appear: 
Button1=
Button3=
Button4=
Button5=
Normally, for Button1 and above, the entry for each button is the full path or command line to the program that button launches.

Button 0 is a special case. This is the Winsock stack, and differs under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Under Windows 95, Dial-Up Networking configurations may be launched by manually editing Button0 to read: 

Button0=/rna <Config Name>
This will cause Highway 101 to launch the Dial-Up Networking configuration named.

Note that no error is generated when a configuration name is misspelled. Highway 101 will simply create a default blank entry and attempt to launch this. Needless to say, things like the phone number to dial won't work very well since they will be blank as well.

TIP: If strange message start to appear, and the name and password appear to be blank on the dial-up box, double-click on the My Computer Icon and then double-click on the Dial-Up Networking folder to make sure that Highway hasn't created another configuration on its own. (To verify the entry, look at the the name found in Button0 after the /rna entry, and try to find it in the dial-up networking folder).

NOTE: This entry is case is sensitive when naming the configuration, and even though it's spelt right, it may be wrong because of case.
[QUICKTIPS]:
These entries have Button1, Button2 format that maps to the same tool bar buttons that the Directories Entries map to . When Quick Tips are enabled then when the mouse is positioned over the corresponding button, the text listed here in the ini file will appear

[STATE]:
These entries describe the state that Highway 101 should launch its various programs. If the state is 1, then the program will be launched as a normal window. If the state is 2, then the program will be launched maximized. If the state is 3, then the program will be launched minimized. Note that a state for Button0 is ignored.

[SETTINGS]:
This section contains the settings the govern the appearance of the Highway 101 Toolbar.

LOCTOP/LOCLEFT:
This is the location of the top of the tool bar and left edge of the tool bar respectively in pixels*15. If an end user launches Highway 101 and the splash screen appears, and even the Winsock Stack main screen appears, but the tool bar does not appear. It is possible that these settings are forcing the tool bar to appear off screen. To correct this, have the user manually edit this section and set LOCTOP=10 and LOCLEFT=10. This should force the tool bar to appear in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

TBSTYLE:
A 1 for this entry will cause the Highway 101 tool bar to appear without menus, and will have three additional buttons on the right hand side of the tool bar: Setup, Help, and Exit. If this entry is set to 0 then the tool bar will appear with a series of menus along the top of its main window. This setting may be set within highway using the Toolbar Settings within Highway 101 and toggling the toolbar type.

TBTIPS:
A 1 for this entry will cause the Highway 101 "Quick-Tips" windows to appear when the user holds his mouse over a particular application's button for approximately 1 second. A small yellow window will appear next to the mouse with text describing which button the user's mouse is over. TBTIPS=0 disables this option.

ONTOP:
A 1 for this entry will cause the Highway 101 tool bar to be on top of all windows even if the other windows have the focus. ONTOP=0 disables this option. Having it disabled may help with users who have limited desktop space.

WINSOCKAUTOSTART:
A 1 for this entry will cause Highway 101 to launch the Button0 entry when it is first started. WINSOCKAUTOSTART=0 disables this. Button0 will not be used at all.

CLOSEONEXIT:
When this option enabled, Highway 101 will attempt to close down all applications it launches when it exits. It will close down Button0 only after all other applications have closed down so that program instability is prevented when the Winsock Stack is unloaded. If an end user is experiencing GPF’s when Highway 101 closes applications, have the end user disable this feature. However, they need to be aware that the Winsock Stack program must be the last program closed, or the end user’s system may crash when this is closed. CLOSEONEXIT=0 will disable this feature.

PORTABLE:
With this feature enabled, Highway 101 will allow the user to change the dial-up phone number each time he starts the program. Portable=0 will disable this feature.

WSStack.
The available options for WSStack are None, Shiva, Win95, Trumpet. The entries have the following effects:

None
The Connect to Service and Disconnect Service menu options are made invisible. When reconfiguring Highway 101, Highway will not attempt any Winsock Configuration.

Shiva
This option should be set for 16-bit Windows users the are using the Microsoft Dial-Up Winsock Stack, or the Winsock Dialer that comes with Netscape.

Win95
This option should be set if the end-user is using Windows 95 Dial-Up Networking for their PPP connections.

[CONFIGURATIONS]:
This entry will contain information that the end user entered when running the setup program. It is not recommended to manually edit this section as none of the changes will take place until reconfiguration is run within Highway.

[AVAILABLE PHONE NUMBERS]:
This will list the phone numbers available to the end user for a given site. This is only used if Highway’s Portable options are used.

[LOCATIONS]:
Locations are only used during portable setup. The format of the locations is Location Name, followed by a comma, followed by the phone number to use for each location.

[CURRENT SITE]:
This is a reflection of the sites.ini entry that is currently being used for portable on-the-fly reconfiguration. If an entry in this section appears incorrect, then first run administrative setup on the original floppy diskettes to correct the sites.ini file on Disk 1 of the Highway 101 setup, and the run reconfiguration within Highway 101 to have all changes take effect. After running reconfiguration, then this section should appear correct.

[REGISTRATION]:
This section contains the end user's address information and other registration information.  It is saved here by the Registration assistant pending electronic registration by Highway 101.
 
[DIALERSIGNAL]:
Under Windows 95, the hwydlr program sends feedback to the Highway 101 program.  This will allow Highway 101 to determine if it can safely launch the programs listed in AutoLaunch, as well as other features.  It contains nothing that the end user can edit.  If this is changed or deleted, it should not case adverse side effects when running the program.  It will simply re-appear the next time the Highway Dialer program is launched.
 
[AUTORUN]:
This section is configured by the Autorun utility in the Highway 101 Toolbar.  The Setup program does not create/modify any of these entries.    When Highway 101 is launched, once it determines that it has a connection going, it will launch all programs listed in the Autorun section.  It starts with Program0 and continues until it reaches a *EOF* tag, at which time it will stop automatically launching programs.  The key on this is equal to the tool tip of the equivalent program.  This way, if the end-user moves buttons around, the autolaunch utility will still be able to locate which program to launch.
 

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