View source for Environment Variables

== Environment Variables ==

Several environment variables can be set to affect the behavior of Synfig Studio:

{| border="1" cellspacing="0"
|'''variable'''||'''description'''
|-
| SYNFIG_DISABLE_AUTOMATIC_DOCUMENT_CREATION || If no documents are specified when synfig is run, it will create a new blank document unless this variable is set.
|-
| SYNFIG_ENABLE_NEW_CANVAS_EDIT_PROPERTIES || When a new document is created, the [[Canvas Properties Dialog]] will only be shown if this variable is set.
|-
| SYNFIG_DISABLE_OPTIMIZE<br/>SYNFIG_DISABLE_OPTIMIZE_TRANS<br/>SYNFIG_DISABLE_REMOVE_DUPS || These three variables, when set, disable various steps of the animated gif optimization process in the magick++ module.  Namely: disable optimization completely, disable optimization of transparent pixels, and disable the removal of adjacent duplicate frames respectively.
|-
| SYNFIG_DISABLE_DRAW<br/>SYNFIG_DISABLE_POLYGON<br/>SYNFIG_DISABLE_SKETCH || These can be used to disable the named tools from being shown in the toolbox.
|-
| SYNFIG_ENABLE_WIDTH || If set, this enables the (mostly broken) width tool in the toolbox.
|-
| SYNFIG_TIMETRACK_HEADER_HEIGHT<br/>SYNFIG_TIMETRACK_ROW_HEIGHT || These are used to change the header and row heights in the timetrack panel.  This is sometimes needed to make the timetrack panel rows line up with the parameter panel's rows.
|-
| SYNFIG_DISABLE_POPUP_WINDOWS || When set, this makes the splash screen and "one moment please" popup windows behave like regular windows - ie. they can be minimized, and covered by other windows.
|-
| SYNFIG_DISABLE_TILE_RENDER || When set, the workarea is always rendered using the scanline renderer, rather than being broken up into small square tiles which are rendered separately.
|-
| SYNFIG_ENABLE_POPUP_MENU_IN_ALL_TOOLS || Allow the right-click context menu to be used in all the various tool states.
|-
| SYNFIG_MODULE_LIST || Specifies where to load the list of dynamic modules from.
|-
| SYNFIG_ROOT || Specifies the path to the synfig resources.  It should be the directory which contains share/pixmaps/synfigstudio/ - usually /usr or /usr/local.
|-
| SYNFIG_TOOLS_CLEAR_SELECTION || When set, unselect all layers before creating a new layer in any of the tools (other than the draw tool, which always leaves selected layers selected so that their ducks can be linked to).
|-
| SYNFIG_TRANSIENT_DIALOGS || Some window managers fail to associate synfig's panels with the toolbox.  Setting this can help.  It seems to work quite well on Windows too, preventing the panels from taking up space on the task bar, but be careful not to minimize any of the panels, it can cause problems.
|-
| SYNFIG_SHOW_TILE_OUTLINES || For debugging, this draws a red outline around each tile when using the tile renderer.
|-
| SYNFIG_DEBUG_DESTRUCTORS || Logs the sequence of destructions that go on when closing things down.
|-
| SYNFIG_SHOW_FULL_TIME_ON_FOCUS || When editing a Time field, start with the full formatted time, ie. "0h 0m 1s 0f" rather than "1s".
|-
| SYNFIG_WINDOW_POSITION_X_OFFSET<br/>SYNFIG_WINDOW_POSITION_Y_OFFSET || Added on to the stored position of each panel when studio starts up.  Used to combat the pixel-by-pixel drifting that happens with some window managers.
|-
| SYNFIG_SHOW_CANVAS_PARAM_WAYPOINTS || In PasteCanvas layers, show waypoints for the Canvas parameter itself, rather than for the canvas that is the parameter's value.  Experimental.  From SVN r1628.
|-
| SYNFIG_KEEP_ABORTED_DRAW_LINES || In the draw tool, if you make a very fast stroke, it's not used.  Studio always used to leave the unused stroke on the display until a longer stroke was made.  SVN r1689 changed things so that these short strokes are immediately hidden.  Setting this variable restores the previous behavior.
|-
| SYNFIG_DISABLE_OPTIMIZE_LAYER_TREE || Before starting to render a tree of layers, Synfig makes an optimized copy of the layer tree, omitting any layers that currently have an amount of 0.  The aim is to make the render go faster, but it may introduce some instability into the application.  Set this variable to disable the optimization step.
|}

In older versions of studio, the polygon, draw, and sketch tools were disabled by default.  The following can be used to re-enable <br>
<code>export SYNFIG_ENABLE_POLYGON=1<br>
export SYNFIG_ENABLE_DRAW=1<br>
export SYNFIG_ENABLE_SKETCH=1<br>
export SYNFIG_ENABLE_WIDTH=1</code>

Suggested starting values to try when attempting to line up the timetrack and parameter panels:<br>
<code>export SYNFIG_TIMETRACK_ROW_HEIGHT=21<br>
export SYNFIG_TIMETRACK_HEADER_HEIGHT=25</code>

Beginning with SVN version r1127<br>
Addressing bug 1829182: the popup caret menu has been disabled for several
tools. There's no comment in the code saying why. Dooglus has added an environment variable which re-enables the popup menu when set. Export
SYNFIG_ENABLE_POPUP_MENU_IN_ALL_TOOLS=1 to try it, and report your findings back
to the bug report as to whether this should be the default or not.