Customizing Enhancements in Epsilon 12

Epsilon can now save many types of customizations (variable settings, colors, macro definitions, and so forth) in an einit.ecm file, and automatically load them each time you start Epsilon. This method of saving your customizations makes updating easier, because it records customizations in a version-neutral format (compared to recording customizations in a state file).

There are a number of ways to add entries to an einit.ecm file.

If you're updating from the Windows or Unix versions of Epsilon 8 or later, you can use the import-customizations command to run the previous version and collect its customizations, inserting them into your einit.ecm file for use in Epsilon 12 and future versions.
If you're updating from an even older version, the manual explains the steps to create a list of changes that can be inserted directly into your einit.ecm file. As with the previous option, future updates will then require no further steps; each new version will automatically use your customizations.
After you've set some variables, colors, or made any other sorts of customizations in Epsilon 12, you can use the list-customizations command to record Epsilon's current state in your einit.ecm file as a list of customizations. This is an alternative to the traditional method of saving changes in your state file.
You can set Epsilon to record each customization as you make it, by setting the record-customizations variable. A value of 1 tells Epsilon to record all customizations in your einit.ecm file, but not to automatically save them. Set the variable to 2 to record and save them without prompting.

With any method, you can edit the einit.ecm file of customizations at any time. The (new in v12.07) edit-customizations command loads it.

When you set record-customizations nonzero, it's not necessary to remember to save your state or otherwise preserve any customization; that becomes Epsilon's default behavior. Instead, if you set a variable or change a color and decide you don't want it preserved for the next time you run Epsilon, remove the corresponding line from your einit.ecm file.

You can use the clean-customizations command to prune your customization file, removing duplicate or unnecessary settings.

The -noinit flag tells Epsilon not to load an einit.ecm file. You can set the load-customizations variable to zero (and save it in your state file) to turn off reading an einit file, if you prefer to use the traditional method of manually saving customizations in your state file.

Epsilon for Windows creates its einit.ecm file in the user-specific customization directory, whose location varies in different versions of Windows. Typically it's \Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Lugaru\Epsilon. See The Customization Directory for details.

Epsilon for Unix creates its einit.ecm file in your ~/.epsilon directory.

Epsilon searches for an einit file using your EPSPATH, so you can install one system-wide if you don't want user-specific customizations. If you prefer to write customizations in EEL format, you can create an EEL source file named einit.e in the same directory as your einit.ecm file, and tell Epsilon to load it at startup by adding this line to your einit.ecm file:

(load-eel-from-path "einit.e" 2)
An einit.ecm file uses Epsilon's command file syntax, which has some enhancements in this version. Each binding line can now specify a range of keys, not just one. And it's now possible to execute many EEL subroutines from a command file and pass them parameters. See Command Files for details.

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