E-mail robot SMTP server
By default, the E-mail robot uses port 25 for sending mail via an SMTP connection. This is the Internet standard for that protocol. To override this, within your VSys.ini file, make the setting: [General] SMTPPort=nnn
where nnn is the port to be used.
Exceptions/bug reports
When VSys encounters an unexpected internal or database error, it may show an "Issue report". The details of this report can be interpreted by the technical support team to determine what happened, and how to fix the problem. Normally VSys is set up to send these by e-mail, but in cases where that is not feasible (e.g. no e-mail client on the machine running VSys), VSys offers the ability to send them via a web connection. To enable this, within your VSys.ini file, make the setting: [Exceptions] Web=1
When submitting an issue report, VSys will make an HTTP connection (port 80) to the http://bugreports.bespoke.com/vsys/bugreport to post the report. If successful, the operator will get an e-mail confirming our receipt of the report, along with a URL that they can click on to see the report's details. By default, VSys includes a full screenshot with the report, and you can see that screenshot at that URL. If for privacy reasons or other reasons that screenshot should not be shown, it can be deleted here.
Kiosk screen size
When in touchscreen/kiosk mode, VSys by default takes up the entire main screen, so volunteers signing in and out see only the VSys screen. To change this, for example while testing and going back and forth between VSys touchscreen mode and other applications, you can set the size of the window that VSys uses in touchscreen mode with these settings in the VSys.ini file: [Kiosk] ScreenWidth=1024 ScreenHeight=768
You can enter your own values for width and height, subject to the constraints of the machine's video card and monitor resolution.
Kiosk PIN length
The default minimum PIN length in VSys is four characters, VSys won't let you assign one that's shorter than this. With the setting:
[Kiosk] MinPINLength=nn
with "nn" a number of 2 or greater, the default behavior is overridden.
Stored passwords
When VSys remembers the login ID and password for a database connection, it stores it in the VSys.ini file. By default, that password is stored in plain text. To obscure that password to users able to view the contents of that file, VSys allows the password to be encrypted. In the VSys.ini file, make the settings: [General] PasswordHash=somevaluetheywontguess
This label is something of a misnomer: it's not really a hash. Hashes are not trivially reversible, and this must be reversible since the name used here is for backwards-compatibility purposes. Instead VSys encrypts the password with the value you provide and an internal (fixed) value, reversing that encryption in order to log on to the database.
Time synchronization
By default, VSys will synchronize its clock with the clock on your database server every few seconds. To disable this on SQL Server, make the entry:
[SQL Server] NoSchedTimeSynch=1
For NexusDB, use [NexusDB] and for Oracle, [Oracle] as the header.
Backup version compatibility
When making VSys backups using NexusDB, VSys uses a special, fast mode which causes NexusDB to simply replicate the tables locally. Normally this is fine. But when making a backup of a database whose schema is of a later generation than the one on which the data will be restored, VSys will include in the backup those columns and tables which are part of the newer schema, but which will cause older versions of VSys to refuse to use the backup file. To eliminate this, make the entry:
[NexusDB] NoFastBackups=1
This setting tells VSys to only copy columns and tables which it understands. This does not affect any databases stored in SQL Server or Oracle.
Memory Management
In version 1.5.5.4, a new memory manager was added to VSys to reduce memory fragmentation. To disable that memory manager, make the entry:
[General] NoFastMM=1
Prevent Reformatting of Zip/Postal codes
To prevent VSys from reformatting zip/postal codes, make the entry:
[Magic] NoZipFormatting=1