How can I set a Processing preference automatically for my users?

harryjohnston

In order to get Android mode to work, I have to set the android.sdk.path preference to point to the Android SDK. I would prefer not to try to explain to the students how to do this themselves.

How can I set an Processing preference automatically, e.g., from a logon script? Alternatively, if there's some way to assign a default value for a particular preference, that would work just as well.

harryjohnston

It turns out that in this particular instance, Android mode will automatically copy the contents of the ANDROID_SDK environment variable into the android.sdk.path preference. So if I set this variable and then launch Processing in the same script that installs the Android mode into the user's workspace, the user's preferences will pick up the necessary value.

It's not an ideal solution; for one thing, it won't work if Processing is already running when the script is run. But it should be OK for my purposes.

I did find defaults.txt, and it looks as if adding the preference to it would work perfectly, but I'm put off by the fairly explicit warning never to try to do this, even if I don't understand why not. :-)