Preferences File

We support an optional file which can be used to alter some internal behavior of XPPython3.

You may create the file <XP>/Output/preferences/xppython3.ini. We use the Main section indicator and support a few flags. Missing values are evaluated as being set to zero where appropriate. For example:

[Main]
debug = 0
flush_log = 1
py_verbose = 0
log_file_name = MyLogFile.txt
log_file_preserve = 0

Flags are:

  • debug: when “1”, print loading and initialization progress for all XPPython3 plugins, and provide more detailed warning messages which may help pin-point plugin coding errors. “0” is do not print. Additionally, when this value is set, XPPython3 will not check for updates or attempt to collect usage data. (We interpret “1”, “On”, “Yes”, and “True” identically.)

    When this feature is enabled, We also enable the built-in X-Plane error callback, which performs additional run-time error checking and will forward these errors to the python log.

    Recommend keeping this off unless you either don’t appear to be able to load your python plugin, or your plugin crashes yet the printed exception isn’t detailed enough. Otherwise, this options puts a lot of extra noise in the XPPython3Log.txt file, which may make it harder to debug your code.

    This option is also settable using the Preferences menu.

  • flush_log: when “1”, immediately call flush on all writes to XPPython3Log.txt. Normally, calls using xp.log are buffered, for performance reasons. If you’re debugging by following the XPPython3Log.txt file in another window, you’ll not see output until the buffer is flushed. Using the flag will cause your updates to be immediately visible. “0” is do not flush immediately.

    Recommend setting this on during debug. The performance penalty is pretty small, and the immediate flush is very useful.

    This option is also settable using the Preferences menu.

  • py_verbose: This sets the value for PYTHONVERBOSE which is equivalent to the -v python flag. Set to “1”: print a message each time a module (any python module) is initialized, showing the place from which it is loaded. Set to “2”: print a message for each file that is checked for when searching for a module. Also provides information on module cleanup at exit. “0” is do not print.

    Recommend keeping this off unless you just cannot get your plugin loaded, or it appears to be loading the “wrong” file. This generates a lot of log entries.

  • log_file_name: This sets the value for the python log file. The default value is XPPython3Log.txt, which will be located in the X-Plane root directory, next to Log.txt. If you set this to a bad value (illegal file, file with incorrect permissions, etc.), python information will be sent to standard output. If you set this value to exactly Log.txt, python information will be added directly to X-Plane’s Log.txt file. This has the advantage of adding python output to the built-in X-Plane Dev Console (with the disadvantage of interspersing python information with all the other X-Plane logging messages.) This parameter is identical to the XPPYTHON3_LOG environment variable. The environment variable, if defined, has precedence.

  • log_file_preserve: This controls if the python log file is preserved between invocations. Set to “1” and the file is preserved. Set to “0”, or not set, and the python log file is truncated on startup. This parameter is identical to the XPPYTHON3_PRESERVE environment variable. The environment variable, if defined, has precedence. Note that the environment variable is “true” if it is set to any value, including 0. If you do not which this behavior be sure to unset the environment variable.

Flags associated with usage data collection are also stored in this file. These are settable using the Preferences menu:

  • check_for_update: Do/Don’t check for new version of XPPython3 on program start.

    Note that this does not download a new version. If a new version is available, the XPPython3 menu item will include a indication.

  • collect_xppython3_stats: On startup send information to XPPython3 server including version of XPPython3 being used. Information is sent anonymously. (See Preferences for details.)

  • collect_python_plugin_stats: On X-Plane exit send information to XPPython3 server including list of python plugins enabled. Information is sent anonymously. (See Preferences for details.)

  • uuid: “Universally Unique ID”, an alpha numeric string which is nearly guaranteed to be unique. Automatically created on initial XPPython3 startup, it is sent with data collection to allow us to determine the number of “unique” users while still protecting your anonymity. We don’t know “who” has “what” UUID, nor do we care. We also don’t restrict access or functionality based on UUID. If you like you can change the UUID: it’ll cause us to consider your usage as by another user, but really, that’s no big deal to us. (If you delete it, we’ll just create another.)

    The particular UUID value is random and generated using python uuid module (uuid.uuid4()). It contains no personally identifying information. Refer to Python documentation for details.

Note

Setting the debug flag will disable all usage data collection, and will disable checking for XPPython3 updates.