Alias Files

Starting with version 2.00.90, FARR has dramatically changed the way that aliases are stored and managed.

In the past, all aliases were stored in the main FindAndRunRobot.ini configuration file.

This made it harder to share aliases and update built-in aliases, because it was impossible to distinguish between user modified aliases and aliases written by others.

Starting with v2.00.90 (May 25, 2007), FARR now gets all of its aliases by scanning a special directory for multiple alias files stored in xml format.

These .alias files are located in the AliasGroups\ subdirectory of FARR, and are further broken up into AliasGroups\Installed and AliasGroups\MyCustom.

All alias files in the first subdirectory (\Installed) are considered READ-ONLY, and the user will not be able to modify these aliases (though the user can disable aliases and alias files).

These alias files are meant to be replaced on upgrading, and new alias files written by 3rd parties can be "installed" into FARR simply by copying the .alias files into this directory (or a subdirectory of it).

Alias files in the second subdirectory (\MyCustom) are alias file(s) that the user can use to create custom aliases.  They will not be replaced on update.  You can create new alias files for yourself by simply creating a new alias file in that directory - you will start out with 1 default custom alias file.

The format of the alias files are identical so its fine to create an alias file in your custom area and then share it with someone who will put it in their Installed subdirectory.

You can also specify a default icon to be used when displaying results from the alias by providing a file ALIASFILENAMEWITHNOEXTENSION.ico in the same subdirecory as the alias file.  (This icon can be overridden for different results in the alias, see here).

You can also now set UserVar initialization values to be used with an alias, by defining the <DefaultUserVars> in your .alias xml file as follows:

   <DefaultUserVars>[TwitterPlugin]$$$// twitter plugin login settings -- change to your values$$$ username=YOUR_TWITTER_USERNAME$$$password=YOUR_TWITTER_PASSWORD$$$</DefaultUserVars>

Use $$$ to separate newlines in User Variable lines.