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Properties File

The *.properties Files

The Mantid framework is configured using up to three simple text *.properties files that are read an interpreted every time the framework is started. These properties are not the same as the properties of algorithms. All three have the same format. The three files are read from first to last, with the values in subsequent *.properties overriding those in previous ones.

1. Install directory Mantid.properties defines the default configuration that the development team suggest as sensible defaults. This file should not be altered by users as it will be replaced with every new install or upgrade of Mantid.

2. /etc/mantid.local.properties is an optional, linux only file that sets shared defaults on a shared system. This is commonly used for setting the default.facility, default.instrument, and datasearch.searcharchive properties.

3. Home directory Mantid.user.properties is where users may override any property setting in Mantid. Any Property setting in this file will override anything set in the Mantid.properties file. Simply either enter the property you wish to override in this file together with it’s new value. The change will take effect the next time Mantid is started. Subsequent installs or upgrades of Mantid will never alter this file.

The user properties file, Mantid.user.properties, can be found

• windows: $MantidInstallDirectory\bin\Mantid.user.properties

• linux and mac-os: $HOME/.mantid/Mantid.user.properties

The Properties

Note

Use forward slash (/) or double up on the number of backslash (\) characters for all paths

Note

Boolean properties evaluate true, 1, and on (case insensitive) as true, all other values as false.

General properties

Property	Description	Example value
algorithms.categories.hidden	A comma separated list of any categories of algorithms that should be hidden in Mantid.	Muons,Testing
algorithms.deprecated	Action upon invoking a deprecated algorithm. Log causes a log message at error level. Raise causes a RuntimError.	Log or Raise
algorithms.alias.deprecated	Action upon invoking the algorithm via one of its deprecated aliases. Log causes a log message at error level. Raise causes a RuntimError.	Log or Raise
curvefitting.guiExclude	A semicolon separated list of function names that should be hidden in Mantid.	ExpDecay;Gaussian;
MultiThreaded.MaxCores	Sets the maximum number of cores available to be used for threads for OpenMP. If zero it will use one thread per logical core available.	0

Facility and instrument properties

Property	Description	Example value
default.facility	The name of the default facility. The facility must be defined within the facilities.xml file to be considered valid. The file is described here.	ISIS
default.instrument	The name of the default instrument. The instrument must be defined within the facilities.xml file to be valid. The file is described here.	WISH
Q.convention	The convention for converting to Q. For Inelastic the convention is ki-kf. For Crystallography the convention is kf-ki.	Crystallography or Inelastic

Directory Properties

Property	Description	Example value
colormaps.directory	The directory where colormaps are located	/opt/mantid/colormaps
datasearch.directories	A semi-colon(;) separated list of directories to use to search for data.	../data;\\\\isis\\isis$\\ndxgem
datacachesearch.directory	The directory where data cache is located	/data/instrument
datasearch.searcharchive	on (only the default facility), off (none), all (all archives), or a list of individual facilities to search for files in the data archive	on or hfir,sns
defaultsave.directory	A default directory to use for saving files. the data archive	../data
framework.plugins.directory	The path to the directory that contains the Mantid plugin libraries	../plugins
framework.plugins.exclude	A list of substrings to allow libraries to be skipped	Qt5
instrumentDefinition.directory	Where to load instrument definition files from	../Test/Instrument
mantidqt.plugins.directory	The path to the directory containing the Mantid Qt-based plugin libraries	../plugins/qtX
parameterDefinition.directory	Where to load parameter definition files from	../Test/Instrument
pythonscripts.directories	Python will also search the listed directories when importing modules.	../scripts or C:/MyScripts
pythonscripts.directory	DEPRECATED: Use pythonscripts.directories instead	N/A
requiredpythonscript.directories	A list of directories containing Python scripts that Mantid requires to function correctly. WARNING: Do not alter the default value.	N/A
requiredpythonscript.directories	A list of directories containing Python scripts that Mantid requires to function correctly. WARNING: Do not alter the default value.	N/A
python.plugins.manifest	A path to the location of the manifest file containing paths to each of the python algorithm files. WARNING: Do not alter the default value.	N/A
python.templates.directory	The directory of python .in files used as templates when generating python scripts from within an algorithm.	N/A

Logging Properties

The details of configuring the logging functionality within Mantid will not be explained here. For those who want more details look into the POCO logging classes and the Log4J logging module that it closely emulates. There are several comments in the properties file itself that explain the configuration we provide by default. However there are some obvious areas that you may want to alter and those properties are detailed below.

Property	Description	Example value
logging.loggers.root.level	Defines the level of messages to be output by the system. The default is information, but this can be lowered to debug for more detailed feedback.	debug, information, notice, warning, error, critical or fatal
logging.channels.consoleChannel.class	Select where log messages appear. ConsoleChannel writes to stdlog. StdoutChannel writes to stdout and can be redirected using pipes. PythonStdoutChannel writes to stdout through python and is visible in jupyter notebooks. PythonLoggingChannel sends messages to a logger called 'Mantid' from the logging framework of Python’s standard library.	ConsoleChannel, StdoutChannel, PythonStdoutChannel, or PythonLoggingChannel

The logging priority levels for the file logging and console logging can also be adjusted in python using the command:

#Set the log to debug level or above (7=debug)
ConfigService.setLogLevel(7)
#Set the log to critical level (2=critical) and do not log that it was changed
ConfigService.setLogLevel(2, True)
# Set the log to information and do not log that it was changed
ConfigService.setLogLevel("information", True)

More details on logging can be found in the developer docs .

Mantid Graphical User Interface Properties

Property	Description	Example value
Notifications.Enabled	Should Mantid use System Notifications for important messages?	On, Off
cluster.submission	Enable cluster submission elements in GUIs	On, Off
MantidOptions.InstrumentView.UseOpenGL	Controls the use of OpenGL in rendering the “unwrapped” (flat) instrument views.	On, Off
MantidOptions.InstrumentView.MesaBugWorkaround	Will reduce the size of the OpenGL display lists used when drawing the Instrument View. By doing this we reduce the chance that we will hit a memory allocation bug in the Mesa graphics library. This is only relevant if you using both Linux and a broken version of Mesa.	On, Off
MantidOptions.InvisibleWorkspaces	Do not show ‘invisible’ workspaces	0, 1
PeakColumn.hklPrec	Precision of hkl values shown in tables	2

Network Properties

Property	Description	Example value
catalog.timeout.value	Network timeout for ICAT4 requests	30
CheckMantidVersion.OnStartup	Check if there is a newer version available and logs a message at information level	1
ISISDAE.Timeout	Timeout for network requests when reading live data from ISIS (in seconds)	100
network.default.timeout	Defines the default timeout for all network operations (in seconds).	30
network.scriptrepo.timeout	The timeout for network operations in the script repository, this overrides the default timeout.	5
network.github.api_token	The api token for github calls used by DownloadInstrument. Setting this to unset or an empty string will turn off authentication.	(not shown)
proxy.host	Allows the system proxy to be overridden, if not set mantid will use the system proxy	http://www.proxy.org
proxy.port	Must be set if proxy.host is set	8080
proxy.httpsTargetUrl	A sample url used to determine the system proxy to use on windows.	http://www.google.com
UpdateInstrumentDefinitions.OnStartup	Download new instrument definition files and Facilities.xml to ~/.mantid/instruments on linux or APPDATA directory on windows. If this is disabled, previously downloaded instruments are ignored and only those in the installation are used.	1
usagereports.enabled	Enable usage reporting	1

ScriptRepository Properties

Property	Description	Example value
ScriptLocalRepository	Directory where ScriptRepository is Installed.	C:\\MantidInstall\\MyScriptRepository
ScriptRepository	Base URL for the remote script repository.	https://download.mantidproject.org/scriptrepository/
ScriptRepositoryIgnore	CSV patterns for paths that should not be listed at ScriptRepository.	*pyc;
UploaderWebServer	URL for uploading scripts.	https://upload.mantidproject.org/scriptrepository/payload/publish

Project Recovery

See project recovery for more details.

Property	Description	Example value
projectRecovery.enabled	Whether project recovery is enabled	On, Off
projectRecovery.numberOfCheckpoints	How many checkpoints/backups to keep	5
projectRecovery.secondsBetween	How often to save checkpoints in seconds	60

Project Saving

Property	Description	Example value
projectSaving.warningSize	Size in bytes of a project before the user is warned when saving	10737418240

Plotting Settings

Property	Description	Example value
plots.ShowTitle	Whether to show titles on plots	On, Off
plots.ShowLegend	Whether to show legend on plots	On, Off
plots.font	The default font for labels and titles on plots.	Helvetica
plots.xAxesScale	The default x scale on 1d plots	Linear, Log
plots.yAxesScale	The default y scale on 1d plots	Linear, Log
plots.x_min	The default minimum x range	10
plots.x_max	The default maximum x range	1000
plots.y_min	The default minimum y range	10
plots.y_max	The default maximum y range	1000
plots.axesLineWidth	The default width of the lines that make the axes	1
plots.enableGrid	The default y scale on 1d plots	Linear, Log
plots.ShowMinorTicks	Whether to show minor ticks on plots	On, Off
plots.ShowMinorGridlines	Whether to show minor gridlines on plots	On, Off
plots.showTicksLeft	Whether to show ticks on the left side of the plot	On, Off
plots.showTicksBottom	Whether to show ticks on the bottom of the plot	On, Off
plots.showTicksRight	Whether to show ticks on the right side of the plot	On, Off
plots.showTicksTop	Whether to show ticks on the top side of the plot	On, Off
plots.showLabelsLeft	Whether to show labels on the left side of the plot	On, Off
plots.showLabelsBottom	Whether to show labels on the bottom of the plot	On, Off
plots.showLabelsRight	Whether to show labels on the right side of the plot	On, Off
plots.showLabelsTop	Whether to show labels on the top side of the plot	On, Off
plots.ticks.major.length	The default length of the major ticks	6
plots.ticks.major.width	The default width of the major ticks	1
plots.ticks.major.direction	The default direction of the major ticks	In, Out, InOut
plots.ticks.minor.length	The default length of the minor ticks	3
plots.ticks.minor.width	The default width of the minor ticks	1
plots.ticks.minor.direction	The default direction of the minor ticks	In, Out, InOut
plots.line.Style	Default Line style on 1d plots	solid, dashed
plots.line.DrawStyle	Default Draw style on 1d plots	default,``steps``
plots.line.Width	Default Line width on 1d plots	1.5
plots.marker.Style	Default marker style on 1d plots	point
plots.marker.Size	Default maker size on 1d plots	6
plots.errorbar.Capsize	Default cap size on error bars in 1d plots	1.0
plots.errorbar.CapThickness	Default cap thickness on error bars in 1d plots	1.0
plots.errorbar.errorEvery	Default number of error bars for every data point in 1d plots. Must be an integer	1
plots.errorbar.Width	Default width of error bars in 1d plots	1.0
plots.legend.FontSize	Default legend font size	8.0
plots.legend.Location	Default legend location	best
plots.images.Colormap	Default colormap for image plots	viridis
plots.images.ColorBarScale	Default colorbar scale for image plots	Linear

ISIS SANS Interface GUI Settings

Property	Description	Example value
sans.isis_sans.plotResults	Whether to show or hide plot results checkbox	On, Off

Algorithm Profiling Settings

See algorithm profiling for more details on using mantid profiler.

Property	Description	Example value
performancelog.filename	The filename for saving the log file. This can be the absolute or relative path. This file is overwritten each session. Default is algotimeregister.out	algotimeregister.out
performancelog.write	Enable or disable writing the performance log. Write is disabled by default.	On, True, 1, Off, False, 0

Getting access to Mantid properties

To get access to, e.g. data saving path property from a C++ program one has to issue the following command:

path = ConfigService.getString("defaultsave.directory")

Modifying User Properties at Run Time

amend_config is a context manager that allows you to temporarily modify configuration settings related to a facility, instrument, data directory, or any additional keyword arguments. It ensures that the changes are only applied temporarily within the context and then restored to their original state when the context exits.

Category: Concepts