Advanced - JOAN settings

Default settings

You can save your default JOAN setup per module as follows. Configure each module as you prefer (e.g. add and configure input devices, agents, etc). Then, click the Settings menu in the module, followed by 'Save settings'. In the save dialog, name your settings default_settings. Next time you start JOAN, each module will try to load the default settings, if they are present.

How to work with settings, code your own settings, and more

All JOAN modules have their own settings object. This is the place where settings are saved. The contents of this settings object can be saved in, and loaded from, JSON files. The conversion between these files and the object is handled in the top-level JoanModuleSettings object. All setting objects should inherit this top-level object.

It is possible to store all Python base type data in a settings object. But it is also possible to use dicts, lists, and custom class objects. They will be automatically stored and loaded from JSON files.

The settings object is usually directly referenced when a setting is needed. If, for example, the settings object holds a limit it is okay to write: if value > self.settings.limit: self.stop() in your do_while_running() loop. If you want to prevent the value from being changed while the module is running, you could copy the value from the settings object to the module action in the initialize function. In this case please make sure to communicate this clearly to the user.

The saving and loading of settings in JSON files is backward-compatible by default since only the values that are present in the JSON file are overwritten. All other values in the settings object are not altered when loading a JSON file. This also means that the __init__ function of your settings class holds the default settings.

The settings objects of all modules are shared through the settings singleton which can be found in all modules manager objects. The settings are shared for reading purposes only, please do not alter settings of other modules from your own module. You can for example deny requested state changes to your module depending on the settings of other modules. This will force the user to change the settings manually before running.