• Color tables
• The data chooser user interface
• The derived quantities and formulas
• Jython libraries
• Display defaults for parameters
• Parameter aliases
• Help tips
• Projections
• Available data sources
• Available displays
• Where the favorite bundles are
• Maps
• Station models

By default McIDAS-V looks in three places for the resources it uses to configure itself:

• User path. This is the ~user/McIDAS-V directory that gets created for each user.
• Site path. This is the file directory or URL directory that can be defined as a command line argument, -sitepath, or through the user preferences dialog.
• System path. This is a directory, /ucar/unidata/idv/resources, in the system Java jar files.

idv.properties = %SITEPATH%/idv.properties;%USERPATH%/idv.properties;

-properties your_properties_file

Once the properties have been processed McIDAS-V initializes its resources by reading in one or more resource definition files. These are called "RBI" files - (Resource Bundle for the IDV). These are XML files, the locations of which are defined by the idv.resourcefiles property:

idv.resourcefiles=%USERPATH%/idv.rbi;%SITEPATH%/idv.rbi;%IDVPATH%/idv.rbi

These RBI files define the location of different collections of resources. For example, from the system RBI file, idv.rbi, we have the entry that defines where McIDAS-V can find the XML files that define the color tables:

  <resources name="idv.resource.colortables">
    <resource location="%USERPATH%/colortables.xml"/>
    <resource location="%SITEPATH%/colortables.xml"/>
    <resource location="%IDVPATH%/colortables.xml"/>
  </resources>

Note: As a further, convenience, if there is a property defined in the properties file which is the resource name then McIDAS-V just uses the value of the property (it treats it as a semi-colon delimited list of paths) as the resources and ignores the resources in the RBI file. So, for example, if you had a property:

idv.resource.colortables=%USERPATH%/colortables.xml;http://yourwebsite.edu/specialtables.xml

To use the RBI file, you need to configure your site to use a set of special color tables that you have created. The first thing to do is bring up McIDAS-V and create the color tables. These color tables get saved in your local McIDAS-V/<Application name> directory in the file colortables.xml (as defined by the resource paths defined in the default RBI). You could copy that file to an area on your web site or on a shared file system that is pointed to by the McIDAS-V sitepath. Now, your users simply need to define the sitepath and they will naturally pick up the color tables you have created.

Most site configuration can be accomplished through the default user/site/system resource locations. However, you can modify the RBI file to include other resources. For example, you could add in an entry:

 <resource location="http://yourwebsite.edu/specialcolortables.xml"/>