Applying specific Java settings / Making Moneydance portable (USB)

Trac ticket 770

Currenlty Moneydance stores its config file on windows in: C:\Documents and Settings\$USER.moneydance It is possible to make this configurable? I use Moneydance on many different machines with my dot-md synced via svn or sftp. It's not very nice to have to leave many different .moneydance/ directories around. Plus I have to reinstall the extensions each time.

Possibly MD might look for a .ini file in the same/working directory, if this exists it creates the file for a config directory pointer. Attachments Change History Changed 3 years ago by sreilly

* status changed from new to closed
* resolution set to fixed

Moneydance will put its config/preferences folder under the directory identified by the $HOME environment variable. If you can set the $HOME environment variable in a startup script then it will put the preferences wherever you like. Changed 3 years ago by emptysands@…

* status changed from closed to reopened
* resolution fixed deleted

Changing the H$OME variable to make MD portable might cause conflicts with other applications that also use $HOME.

Is it possible for MD to check for $MDHOME, then $HOME. Using the first in perference if it exists. Changed 3 years ago by sreilly

* status changed from reopened to closed
* resolution set to fixed

After checking into this a bit more I've found that you can do the following:

1) Create a shortcut to the Moneydance.exe program 2) Right-click on the new shortcut or select the File->Properties menu after selecting the new shortcut 3) In the Target field for the shortcut, add the following (with quotes):

    "-J-Duser.home=C:\Program Files\Moneydance\"

4) Change C:\Program Files\Moneydance\ to wherever you would like the .moneydance preferences directory to be created. I assume that "-J-Duser.home=." would specific the directory from which Moneydance was launched.

Please re-open this ticket if this does not solve the problem.

Thanks, Sean Changed 2 years ago by sohojoe

* status changed from closed to reopened
* resolution fixed deleted

How do you do this on a Mac? Changed 2 years ago by sreilly

* status changed from reopened to closed
* resolution set to fixed

This can be done on a Mac by taking the following steps: 1) Control-click the Moneydance application and select "Show Package Contents" from the popup menu 2) In the Finder window that appears, open the Info.plist file under the Contents folder 3) If you have the Apple Developer tools installed this opens in an easy to use properties editor. If not, you will have to modify the file using a text editor, being careful not to break the contents. 4) Under the "Java" section of the file is a section called "Properties". If using a text editor, added the following two lines to the end of that section:

        <key>user.dir</key>
        <string>/Volumes/SomeVolume/SomeFolder</string>

where /Volumes/SomeVolume/SomeFolder is the path to the folder that you would like to act as your "portable" home folder. Moneydance will create a subfolder called ".moneydance" (with the leading period) under which all of the user-specific settings will be stored.

for Ubuntu/linux with startup script

4 Posted by ben on April 16, 2009 @ 04:16 PM ben's Avatar

Hello all

WARNING THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE NOT OF THE FAINT OF HEART. Make a back up of the Moneydance directory before you attempt this.

I spoke with the developer about this issue and there is a way to direct Moneydance to save the ".moneydance" in an alternate location. Its not exactly straight forward but here goes:

Create a folder called "config" inside the Moneydance folder. Copy the .moneydance folder from your home directory and put it in the config directory you just created.

Edit the Moneydance start up script in a text editor. This is the file called "Moneydance" in the Moneydance directory. Right down towards the bottom of this script file is the java command that launches the Moneydance application. This is the second to last line in the script file and it starts like this:

"$app_java_home/bin/java" -client

The line contains a great many options after the -client option do not delete or change any of the other options. You need to add -Duser.home=./config immediately after the -client option and save the file.. Such that the beginning of this line reads:

"$app_java_home/bin/java" -client -Duser.home=./config

That will tell Moneydance to look in your config folder for the .moneydance folder.

Additionally if you are running Moneydance from a USB drive you may need to explicitly open the data file from the file menu after you launch the application as the path to your data fie might change if the drive letter for your USB drive changes.

Sincerely Ben Spencer

see also our forum

Method also usable for other java settings like -Xmx (heap memory)
see