The Environment Tab

Documentation / Contents - Location and Time

• Overview of Location and Time
  • What It Changes, and What It Does Not
  • The Window
  • The Buttons
• The Time and Location Tab
  • Choosing a Timezone
    • Follow system timezone
    • 12-hour clock (AM/PM)
  • Location
• The Language and Formats Tab
  • Locale (LANG)
  • Language
  • Currency
  • The Sample Line
• The Environment Tab
  • Session Exports
  • The Preview
  • The Shell Startup File
    • Which File Is Detected
    • How the Write Behaves
• Files and Settings
  • The Configuration File
  • The Keys
  • Environment Variables Read
• Command Line and Keys
  • Command Line
  • Keyboard
  • Mouse
• What This Panel Does Not Do
  • Out of Scope by Design
  • Not Built
  • Known Rough Edges
• Fonts, Colours, and the Rest

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• Copyright Information

The Environment Tab

Recording a locale in a file does nothing on its own. Programs read the environment. This tab is where you turn your settings into environment variables, by writing a block into your own shell startup file.

The tab has three parts, top to bottom: the export toggles, a preview of the block, and the shell startup file controls.

Session Exports

Three toggles in the box "Session exports:".

Export LANG      on by default
Export TZ        on by default
Export LC_ALL    off by default

Each toggle decides whether its line appears in the block below.

Export LC_ALL has no value field anywhere in this panel, and the LC_ALL line is written only when a value exists. Turning it on therefore does nothing unless you put env_lc_all into the configuration file by hand. See Files and Settings.

The Preview

The read-only pane below the toggles shows the exact block that would be written. It is set in the fixed-width face because a shell block is columnar and the export lines should line up. It updates as you change the toggles and the fields on the other tabs.

The block looks like this:

# BEGIN Cyanotype CyLocalize
# Managed by cylocalize - use Location and Time Preferences to change this block.
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export TZ=Europe/London
# END Cyanotype CyLocalize

The Shell Startup File

The box "Shell startup file:" holds the controls that touch your rc file.

• "Allow shell updates (writes only when you click Write)" is off by default. Until you turn it on, both buttons below are insensitive. Nothing is written to your shell startup file without this toggle and a button press.
• "Shell rc:" shows the file that was detected, or "(none)". It is a label, not a field. To use a different file, set shell_rc_path in the configuration file.
• "Write shell block..." writes or updates the block.
• "Remove block..." takes the block out again.

Both buttons carry three dots, but neither opens a dialog. They act the moment you click them. Every message appears on the status line at the bottom of the window.

Which File Is Detected

The panel looks at your SHELL and tries a list of candidates, taking the first that exists:

zsh          ~/.zshrc, ~/.zprofile, ~/.zlogin
ksh          ~/.kshrc, ~/.profile
csh, tcsh    ~/.cshrc, ~/.tcshrc, ~/.login
sh           ~/.profile
anything else, including bash and an unset SHELL
             ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.profile

If none of them exist, the first candidate is used anyway and would be created.

The block is written in Bourne syntax, using export. A C shell wants setenv. Writing this block into a .cshrc or .tcshrc today produces lines that shell cannot use. C shell syntax is planned and not built.

How the Write Behaves

• The target must be a regular file under your home directory. Anything else is refused.
• A backup is taken first, named after the file with .cylocalize.bak. and the time appended. Backups accumulate; nothing prunes them.
• If the two marker lines are already present, exactly the marked span is replaced and the rest of the file is left alone. Writing twice does not produce two blocks.
• If a BEGIN marker is found with no END marker, the write is refused rather than guessed at.

Removing takes the block out, along with the blank line before it, and leaves the rest untouched. Removing when there is no block succeeds quietly.

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• Files and Settings
• What This Panel Does Not Do