Configurations and automated switching

ZipChord keeps its settings (dictionaries, selected locale, detection options etc.) in a settings file stored in the user’s AppData folder. In addition to this, these settings together with the locale (which defines the keyboard and punctuation settings for a specific language) can be saved into configuration files. These configuration files can be further modified through ZipChord main window, loaded, or combined with a mapping file to automatically switch based on the active window.

Configurations are currently supported only through command line options.

This page gives an overview of the command line options and an example of how to create an automatic configuration switching.

Command Line Options

The following options are available with ZipChord already running. Simply run a command such as zipchord pause from a Command Prompt. (Make sure that the ZipChord executable is in the current folder or included in the path.)

Save and Load

zipchord {save|load} <configuration_file> - saves or loads the configuration (current setting and locale details) into a file.

Notes

• If no path is specified, the configuration files are saved to (or loaded from) ZipChord’s dictionary directory. (Depending on your installation choices, this is typically either in your Documents/ZipChord folder or in the same folder as the ZipChord executable.)
• Note that after saving or loading the configuration file, the name of the configuration file is indicated in the title of ZipChord's main window. This is a reminder that changes to settings and locale you do through the user interface will be stored in the cofiguration file.
• The default extension .ini can be omitted when specifying the configuration files using these commands.

Pausing ZipChord

zipchord {pause|resume} - pauses or resumes ZipChord. This is command is equivalent to pausing ZipChord using the button in the main UI, tray icon, or to using the defined keyboard shortcut for this function.

Automated configuration switching

zipchord follow <mapping_file> - loads a mapping file which defines what configuration should be automatically loaded based on titles of application windows (as seen during the task switching). The first matching entry will be load. See below for the specification of the mapping file.

Mapping file

The mapping file is a Tab-delimited text file with pairs of entries on each line: The first entry is a pattern matching the window titles and the second is the corresponding configuration file name.

• The window title pattern accepts * as a wildcard for any number of any characters (including zero).
• The configuration file names do not have to include path if they are placed in ZipChord’s dictionary path, and do not have to include the .ini extension.
• By default, the mapping file should be saved as a .txt text file.
• As with dictionary files, lines without a Tab (as well as content in additional columns) are ignored.

Example mapping file:

The configuration files can reference different dictionaries, using their own punctuation and spacing settings, etc. (This line is ignored as a comment.)
*Excel*	excel
* Visual Studio Code	programming
*	default	(The matching goes from the top; this mapping file uses default.ini for all windows except Excel and VS Code)

Restoring normal behavior

zipchord restore - returns ZipChord to using the settings and locales based on the information in the AppData settings.

Read Next

If you need additional control over ZipChord, you can use the Test Automation Console.