topic Re: python addin: best practise for persisting custom setting? in Python Questions

python addin: best practise for persisting custom setting?

Laurensvan_der_Burgt — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:19:14 GMT

Dear,

For the development of a Python addin (extension) for ArcMap I would like to manage a user setting which persists over multiple arcMap sessions.

I have been exploring several options with an xml settings file.
One of the things I found out that it is not possible to directly use a file included in the plugin's Install folder: the contents of this folder are overwritten in the Addin AssemblyCache folder so the original state of the settingsfile is reverted for each new ArcMap session.

I managed to find a solution by copying the settingsfile to a general accessible location and check for existence each time the extension loads. However, this is a rather devious solution. Any other ideas of how to accomplish this?

Cheers, Laurens

Re: python addin: best practise for persisting custom setting?

markdenil — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 16:38:17 GMT

Devious, perhaps, but writing to some location in the user's personal directory is the usual way of doing it.
For example, Arc places the default geodatabase and workspace there.

Re: python addin: best practise for persisting custom setting?

Luke_Pinner — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 10:31:32 GMT

Write it to %APPDATA%\your_adddin_name\your_config_file.xml.

This way, it gets written to a users profile and will not get overwritten by later users (who will get their own config file).

e.g.

import os
config=os.path.join(os.environ['APPDATA'],'your_addin_name', 'your_config_file.xml')

Re: python addin: best practise for persisting custom setting?

Laurensvan_der_Burgt — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 06:32:24 GMT

Thanks for the quick responses!
Indeed useful to ensure that each user will gets a separate instance of the config file.