XML Configuration Output

The XML settings output functions allow the user to save PAMGuard settings to XML files. For technical reasons, these do not contain every last setting that controls PAMGuard, so cannot (currently) replace the psfx settings system. The XML files can only be written by PAMGuard and cannot be read back into PAMGuard. They can however be used to provide a more human readable record of changing configurations during a PAMGuard operation.

Future developments may extend this system to write settings to the front of binary files. The XML configurations are also written to the Tethys database. The XML files can be created manually, or automatically every time that PAMGuard starts.

Control

XML output is controlled from the File/XML Configuration Output menu command

Module Selection

Select to output all PAMGuard modules, a single module, or ‘up to a selected module’ (for example if you selected the click detector, in this case it would write out settings for the acquisition module as well as the click detector)

Output non-module data

Not all settings are associated with a PAMGuard module, for instance display settings, or the settings controlling the XML writer itself. Select if you want these settings written as well as module settings

Include class constants

These are internal parameters used by PAMGuard that cannot be changed by the user. Generally, you’ll probably no want to output these

Write parameter names

Parameters in the XML output are identified by the variable name used in the JAVA source code. Often it’s easy for the user to work out how these relate to the controls they see in the PAMGuard control dialog. Select this option to also write out a more user friendly name of the type that would appear in the dialogs. (Note that this feature has not yet been implemented for most parameters)

Write parameter tips

Write longer tool tips for each parameter (Note that this feature has not yet been implemented for most parameters).

Output Options

File Name

By default, a manually output XML file will be written to the folder or directory holding the psfx file and will have a datestamp added to it’s name. If you want to write to a different location, press the Browse’ button

Automatic XML file generation

The option to ’Write settings file whenever PAMGuard starts. will write all module settings to an XML file every time that PAMGuard starts. If Binary Storage is being used, then XML file will be written to the folder containing the binary data. If binary Storage is not used, then the file will be written to the folder containing the psfx file.

Preview

Press the preview button to see the XML output before it is written to file. This is a good way to see the effect of the various options described above

Model Viewer