A.8.2 Loadable FilesYou can customize your Mathematica by adding files that can loaded into the system under different circumstances. Such files are conventionally placed in either system-wide or user-specific base directories.
| $BaseDirectory | system-wide base directory for files to be loaded by Mathematica | | $UserBaseDirectory | user-specific base directory for files to be loaded by Mathematica |
Base directories for files to be loaded by Mathematica.
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Mathematica
| | Windows | | /Library/Mathematica | Macintosh | | /usr/share/Mathematica | Unix |
Typical values of $BaseDirectory.
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mathematica
| | Windows | | ~/Library/Mathematica | Macintosh | | ~/.Mathematica | Unix |
Typical values of $UserBaseDirectory.You can specify different locations for these directories by setting operating system environment variables when you launch Mathematica, as discussed in Section A.7.1.
| Applications | Mathematica application packages | | Autoload | packages to be autoloaded on startup | | FrontEnd | front end initialization files | | Kernel | kernel initialization files | | Licensing | license management files | | SystemFiles | general system files |
Typical subdirectories of Mathematica base directories. Some files in base directories serve as configuration files, automatically used by the Mathematica kernel or front end.
| Kernel/init.m | run when the kernel is started | | Kernel/end.m | run when the kernel is terminated | | FrontEnd/init.m | read when the front end is started |
SystemFiles/FrontEnd/StyleSheets/
| | customized notebook style sheets | | SystemFiles/FrontEnd/Palettes/ | additional palettes to appear in the front end menu |
Some typical kernel and front end configuration files. Kernel configuration files can contain any Mathematica commands. These commands can test global variables such as $SystemID and $MachineName to determine what operations to perform. Front end configuration files can contain only certain special commands, as described in Section A.2.12.
| Applications/name/ | named add-on applications | | Autoload/name/ | add-ons to be loaded automatically when Mathematica is started |
Subdirectories under $BaseDirectory and $UserBaseDirectory. With the default setting for the kernel $Path variable, an add-on can be loaded from within a Mathematica session simply by using the command <<name`. This will load the init.m file for the add-on, which should in turn be set up to load other necessary files or packages. By placing an add-on under the Autoload subdirectory of $BaseDirectory or $UserBaseDirectory, you can have Mathematica automatically load the add-on whenever you start the kernel or the front end.
| init.m or Kernel/init.m | an initialization file to be loaded by the kernel | | FrontEnd/init.m | an initialization file to be loaded by the front end | | Documentation/ | documentation to be found by the front end |
Typical possible contents of the directory for an add-on. Note that with the default setting for the front end documentation path, all documentation in Documentation directories will automatically show up in the front end Help Browser.
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