Why do I have to edit the Registry?
Editing the Windows Registry, once you are comfortable, is not as scary as most users believe. The trick is to only modify the settings that you understand. Generally speaking, you will do no serious damage to your computer if you only alter the settings under the Geoshell branch..
Although we have tried to move the settings stuff away from editing the registry to menues within the plugins or helper applications like GeoConfig, there are still a lot of settings which have to be done in the registry.
Basic Registry Vocabulary
| Regedit.exe |
Regedit.exe is the filename for the generically named "Registry Editor" that is part of every windows install. Third party registry editors exist, but regedit.exe is fine for most registry-related activities, including configuring Geoshell. |
| Key |
In regedit.exe, these appear in the left pane as a file tree. |
| Values |
In Regedit.exe, these appear in the right pane, under the Name column. You can think of values kind of like files - there are several types of values in the registry and each holds a different kind of data. They type of data represented can be seen in the Type column. The two types of values used by Geoshell are Strings (REG_SZ) and Dwords (REG_DWORD). |
| Data |
The bread and butter of the registry, this is where the information is... |
| String Values |
This type is a standard string, used to represent human readable text values. |
| Dword Values |
This type represents the data by a four byte number and is commonly used for Boolean values, such as "0" is disabled and "1" is enabled. These values can be edited in Regedit.exe as either hexadecimal or decimal format. Any numeric values you set for Geoshell will need to be in decimal format, so make sure to select it as hexadecimal is the default when you open a dword value. |
| Binary Values |
This type stores the value as raw binary data. Geoshell and Geoshell plugins do not typically use this value type to store settings. |
| Multi-String Values |
This type is a multiple string used to represent values that contain lists or multiple values, each entry is separated by a NULL character. Geoshell and Geoshell plugins do not typically use this value type to store settings. |
| Expandable String Values |
This type is an expandable data string that is string containing a variable to be replaced when called by an application. Geoshell and Geoshell plugins do not typically use this value type to store settings. |
Geoshell's Registry Settings
These pages are under construction. Please feel free to help out and add explanations!
