Alternate Tool Folders

In some environments, multiple users may share a single computer or networked volume, and that volume may be configured to grant different levels of access to different users. Depending on how the computer or network is configured, some users may not have the ability to modify folders inside the Sketchpad application folder. For example, your network or computer may be configured to prevent student users from modifying the contents of the Tool Folder inside the Sketchpad application folder. Any tools that you (or the computer's administrator) choose to store in that Tool Folder will be accessible to all Sketchpad users on the computer, but other users will not be able to add or change those tools.

Under Mac OS X, if users without access to the central Sketchpad application directory wish to have "personal" Tool Folders of their own, they can create a folder named Tool Folder inside a folder named Sketchpad in their personal Documents folder. Any tools they store in this folder (that is, in Documents | Sketchpad | Tool Folder) will appear in their Custom Tool menu along with tools from the main (application directory) Tool Folder, but will not affect the contents of the Custom Tool menu of other users of that Macintosh.

Under Microsoft Windows, you can use a command-line flag in conjunction with a shortcut to Sketchpad to change the location of the Tool Folder to a writable folder. You can also use this command-line flag to create multiple shortcuts to Sketchpad, each of which starts Sketchpad using a different set of tools. See Command-Line Flags for Sketchpad for more information.