This parameter specifies the maximum number of instances of each application (prism, ChIPS, taskmonitor) which may be run at the same time in a single CIAO analysis session.

This parameter specifies which application filter window should use as its prefered initialization point if more than one other application is running when filtwin is invoked. If only a single instance of ChIPS, prism, or the imager is running, filtwin will automatically initialize its file field from the existing application, unless filtwin_init is set to "none". If "none", filtwin will query the user as to whether it should update its file field with the filename from the other application. Acceptable values for this parameter are: imager, ChIPS, prism, or none.

This parameter specifies the number of filter descriptions which should be saved from filtwin when a session save is performed. If set to 0, the default, only the final state of filtwin is recorded in the session file. If set to any non-zero value N, then the last N filters that were applied to filtwin will be recorded in the session save file. When a session restore is performed, filtwin will iterate through each of the saved filter states.

This parameter controls the behavior of toolagent when an application is invoked from the "Tools" menu. If set to "DISPLAY", an instance of taskmonitor is invoked to display the stderr and stdout of the application being run; this is the default behavior. If it is set to "BACKGROUND", the requested tool will be run in the background. The user will not be able to view the stderr or stdout of the tool, but the exit status will be provided in an information dialog.

This parameter specifies whether the user wishes for file selection dialog directories to be application-specific or session-specific. If set to APPLICATION, each application will maintain the last directory from which a file was selected and start the next file selection dialog in that directory. If set to SESSION, the selection dialogs of any application running will use the directory specified in the workdir parameter as its starting directory. When a file is selected, the workdir parameter is updated to store the directory so that the next selection dialog will start in that directory (the workdir param update only occurs if dir_option is set to SESSION). The default value is APPLICATION.

This parameter allows the user to specify the initial directory for file selection dialogs. The default is to use the directory from which the application was invoked, which then gets updated whenever a file is loaded into the GUI. It is only used when dir_option is set to SESSION.

This parameter allows the user to set the default filter pattern to use the first time a file selection dialog box pops up in prism or filtwin. The default value is set to "*.fits", but may be changed by the user via the pset command. For instance,

pset ciao pattern="acisf*_evt.qp"

The value should contain at least 1 wildcard character (? or *) or the code will internally default to "*". On subsequent invocations of a file selection box, the last specified filter will be re-used.

Thus if pattern is set to "*.fits" and prism is started, the "File Open" dialog will use "*.fits" as the filter pattern. If the user updates the filter in the dialog to "*.qp" and selects a file, the next time the file open dialog is invoked within the same run of the application it will have "*.qp" as the filter. If the application is terminated and re-run, "*.fits" will again be the initial filter (since the default pattern is not automatically updated in ciao.par).

This parameter controls which fields are brought up by default in toolagent's parameter file editor. There are two required entries, name and value, which will be added automatically if they are missing. The remaining options are type, prompt, min, max, default, and mode.

This parameter specifies whether the infile value of a parameter file in toolagent is seeded with the session-specified analysis file. If set to "no", the existing value in the tool's parameter file is used.

This parameter controls whether or not hidden parameters are displayed in toolagent's parameter editor by default.

This parameter is used to specify whether an existing CIAO session save file should be overwritten if a save request is made using the name of an already existing file. The default is no.

This parameter controls the terminal window that is launched from the GUI "Analysis" menu, e.g. when starting a session of Sherpa.

This parameter can be used, for example, to pass command-line startup options to the terminal.