..
   Athena document is copyright 2016 Bruce Ravel and released under
   The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
   http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Configuring ATHENA to work for you
----------------------------------

:demeter:`athena` allows you to set an enormous number of
preferences. Many dozens of things that could conceivably be
configured can, in fact, be configured using this tool. In any
situation where is was not obvious to me that there was a best, most
proper value for a parameter, I chose a default and made an entry for
it in the preference tool. The preference tool is shown here.

.. _fig-prefs:
.. figure:: ../../_images/prefs.png
   :target: ../_images/prefs.png
   :align: center

   The preferences tool.

I am not going to explain this tool in great detail. I am trusting
that if you are sufficiently motivated to configure the behavior of
:demeter:`athena` to be something other than what comes out of the
box, you will also be sufficiently motivated to follow your nose
through the use of this tool.

The preference parameters are divided into related groups. For
example, there are groups for background removal parameters, alignment
parameters, colors, and so on.

To view a group of preferences, :mark:`leftclick,..` click on the
little cross sign next to the group's name in the list on the left
side of the tool. This will open a branch containing all the
parameters in that group.  :mark:`leftclick,..` Click on one of them
and it will be displayed in the controls on the left.

Click on the :button:`default,light` button to restore
:demeter:`athena`'s default value or use the control below the
:button:`default,light` button to set a new value. That control will vary
depending on the type of parameter. A text or numeric parameter will
offer an entry box. A color parameter will offer a button which pops
up a color selection dialog. A list parameter will offer a menu with
the choices. And so on.

The text area below these controls displays an explanation of the
function served by that preference. Underneath that are buttons for
setting or saving the parameters.

Various configuration files, including the master configuration file
demeter.ini and others, are stored in user space. On linux (and other
unixes) this is ``$HOME/.horae/``. On Windows this is
``%APPDATA%\\demeter``.

