In the directory where the software is installed, there is a subdirectory named data. This subdirectory stores data required for the execution of the software and files that allow the user to customize an installation. The data directory is further divided into subdirectories. The ones of interest here are named local, progm and site. The files moses.aux, moses.mac, moses.man and moses.pgm are stored in the progm directory. These files contain auxiliary shapes data, program macros, the on line reference manual and program parameters and default settings, respectively. Also at this directory level is the original moses.cus file provided with the installation.

The files in the progm directory are read each time the program is executed as part of program initialization, and should not be altered by the user. The local directory is provided for user customization. When the program is executed, it checks for the existence of a local database. If these do not exist, then it builds them. During the building of these databases, the program will attempt to read files moses.mac and moses.aux from the local directory. This allows one to add a set of site specific macros and structural shapes to those which are normally available. You should simply create files with the above names and then delete the file moses.sit on a UNIX machine or moses.dsi on a PC. The next time the program is executed, the databases will be recreated with your data included.

Most customization that one needs is available with the moses.cus file. This process is even easier than that described above. There can be many different copies of moses.cus, and they are read in order. First, the copy in the data/progm directory is read, next, the one in data/local. These are basically used to set variables for the entire network. After these two, MOSES looks for two more: first in location defined with the environment variable $HOME (%HOME% in WINDOWS), and then in the current working directory. The last two of these allow for customization at the user and job level. If you are homeless (do not know your home), you can find it by typing in a command prompt:

     echo %home%  - on WINDOWS, or
     echo $home   - on anything else
 

The "cus" file contains MOSES commands that localize MOSES for your situation. In addition, there is another set of files which contain user preferences. MOSES looks for moses.ini or .moses.ini in each of the location it looks for moses.cus. When looking in the MOSES install directories, the name without the . is used and in the home and local directories, the name with the . is used. The ini files are again simple text files that you can edit with a text editor, but you can also maintain the .moses.ini file in your home directory directly in MOSES. Simply use the Customize menu and select Preferences.

It is possible to select preferences you actually did not want. For instance, if you choose a proportional font for the log file, none of the reports coming to the screen will look correct, the titles and columns will be misaligned. The easiest way to solve this is to select a fixed pitch font, using Customize/Edit Preferences from the MOSES tool bar. If you want to return to the original defaults shipped with MOSES, delete moses.ini from your $HOME and data/local directories, use Customize/Edit Preferences, and click OK without changing anything.

Two other selections are available in this menu: REGISTER and UNREGISTER. REGISTER will register the software with the operating system. This provides the ability to click the MOSES icon to run the software, as well as associate certain file types with particular software. For instance, clicking on root.ans/gdv00001.eps can open the GhostView Postscript viewer. Clicking on root.cif, root.dat, root.ans/log00001.txt or root.ans/out00001.txt can open the VI text editor. Also, a right click on root.log can invoke the TIDY utility, which cleans up a MOSES database. Of course, if one prefers the command prompt method of starting MOSES, less typing is required if the path is set to where the software is installed. Using UNREGISTER will remove all these file associations.