Controls
Use Public
Select this choice to use the "public" folder instead of a "personal" one. You are telling VISION where to look for certain files. The public folder is the folder that has been designated in the VISION database as the location for files of this kind. When the public choice is selected, the designated public location is shown in the text box below.
By default, the public locations are folders inside the VISION base folder (i.e., where VISION.EXE is located). But a different location can be specified for any or all of them, using the VISION Security program.
Use Personal
Select this choice to use a personal folder instead of the public one. This means VISION will look for certain files in the folder you specify, rather than in the folder that has been designated in the VISION database as the location for files of this kind. This alternate location is called "personal" here because it applies only to you, on this computer.
When the personal choice is selected, the text box below is enabled, as is the Browse button. You can type or paste a path in the text box, or you can click the Browse button to navigate to, and select, a folder.
Click the Help button at the bottom of the Preferences window if you would like to see reasons why you might choose a personal folder over the public one.
Note that incomplete paths, such as “Reports,” are relative to the VISION base folder. For example, if there is no path entered for “Supplemental Spell-Check Dictionaries,” VISION will look for this kind of file directly in the VISION base folder (i.e., the folder containing VISION.EXE).
Folder Location
This box shows the current public or personalized location (depending on which button is selected above) for VISION files of this kind.
When "Public" is selected, this box is read-only. You can view the public location here, but can't change it. Public paths can be changed only in the VISION Security program.
When "Personal" is selected, you can type or paste in this box, or use the Browse button to choose a folder; that folder's path then appears here.
If the path is relative (incomplete) rather than absolute, it is interpreted as relative to the VISION base folder (i.e., where VISION.EXE is located). For example, the relative path "Reports" might mean "C:\Program Files\VISION\Reports", or "\\server2\apps\VISION\Reports". It depends on where VISION is installed.
Colors
The background color changes to yellow when any path is changed, just to indicate that a change is pending. If a path is invalid or inaccessible, it is displayed in red text.
Browse
The Browse button is enabled only for "personal" paths. Click to choose a personalized location for VISION to use for files of this kind.
Default
The Default button is enabled only for personalized paths, and only when the personal location differs from the default location. Click the Default button in order to set the personal path to the default location for files of that type.
The default locations are folders inside the VISION base folder (i.e., where VISION.EXE is located).
Folders Tab
This tab shows the folder locations in which VISION will look for certain kinds of files: report scripts, linked graphics, etc. The text boxes show the paths to those folders that have been designated by default, by your VISION administrator, or by you yourself. These folders apply to all projects.
Relative Paths
Relative paths are relative to the location of VISION.EXE.
A "relative" path is a partial path. It lacks some portion of the front part of the complete path. It is relative to some other path. That other path plus the relative path adds up to the whole path. Any relative paths on the Preferences window's Folders tab are interpreted as relative to the VISION base folder (the location of VISION.EXE).
For example, in the picture above "Testfltr" is the path to (location of) the folder for test filters. It is a relative path, insofar as it doesn't begin with a drive letter (e.g., C:\…) or the double backslashes that precede a server name (e.g., \\server1\…).
Suppose that the VISION program is located here:
\\server1\apps\VISION
In that case, the relative path "Testfltr" means this complete path:
\\server1\apps\VISION\Testfltr
Public and Personal
For each folder location, you can choose to use the "public" location or another, "personal", location of your choice.
The public locations are set in the VISION Security program, and they apply to everyone that uses this VISION database. But the personal locations, as with other VISION preferences, just apply to you alone, on this computer.
Note that you can't edit the public locations here. That's why the text boxes and their associated buttons (Browse and Default) are inactive when they are showing the public locations.
Why use a personal location?
You may never have any reason to use a folder other than the "public" one. But here are some possible reasons:
The public path is inaccessible |
The proper solution to this problem is to grant you access to the public folders. But a temporary work-around to this problem is to install a local copy of VISION and set your personal locations to the folders in the local area. |
The VISION program is installed in a network location, and it runs slowly at your computer |
As a remedy, you decide to install the VISION program directly on your computer in the hope that it will run faster from there. However, suppose the public locations of the VISION folders happen to be set to their default values. That means that VISION will use the folders inside your own private installation. But you don't want that; you want VISION to continue using the public folders, the ones located within the network installation of VISION, because that will spare you the trouble of having to constantly synchronize your files with the ones on the network, the ones that the other VISION users are using. In that case, the solution would be for you to use "personal" folder locations, but set those personal locations to the VISION folders (Reports, Graphics, etc.) located on the network. |
You have multiple versions of VISION on your computer |
You want to avoid the trouble of having to maintain multiple copies of your custom reports, linked graphics, and so forth. If you used the public paths, and those happen to be relative paths, then in order to see the same pictures, custom reports, and so on, in all the program versions you have, you would have to maintain copies of those files for each of your program versions. But by using personal locations in this situation, locations that are complete paths, not relative, all versions of VISION would thereby share the same folders; you wouldn't need multiple copies of them. |
Your VISION reports list is too cluttered |
A future version of VISION may offer a means of hiding reports you don't want to see, or highlighting reports that you frequently use. But until then, if you become weary of scrolling through too many reports in the VISION reports list in order to find the few reports that are of interest to you, then you could use a personal location for reports, as seen in the picture above. In that personal reports location, using Windows Explorer, you would copy those few reports from the public folder to the personal folder. But note that the reports location represents the location of the "parent" reports folder – that is, the folder that contains the subfolders named "Reports", "Docs", "Search", and "System". So you need to create this folder structure – the parent "Reports" folder, with the four subfolders. |
Colors
If you change the location for a folder, either by editing a personal path, or simply by switching from public to personal, or vice-versa, then the text box for that location turns yellow, and its label is bold, just to indicate that you have made a change there. (The change is not effective until you click the OK button.)
If a location is not accessible to you, it is displayed in red text. This means one of the following:
•the path doesn't exist, or
•it's misspelled, or
•it does exist, but isn't readable to you for some reason – perhaps it's on a server that you don't have permission to see.
Buttons
The Browse and Default buttons are enabled only for personal folders. And the Default button is enabled only if the personal location is NOT the default location.
