When Arbortext Editor or an Arbortext PE sub-process starts, it can access custom files placed in specific directories. At startup, it automatically looks for compiled Java files (.class and .jar files), JavaScript, JScript, VBScript, ACL, document type, publishing configuration and other types of files within the Arbortext-path\custom directory structure.

You can have one or more custom directories outside the Arbortext-path install tree. To specify a path list for their locations, set the APTCUSTOM environment variable. The custom directory must be located using a file system; HTTP references are not supported.

At startup, some search paths are automatically prepended with the path to a custom subdirectory. Startup automatically sets some of these search paths using a symbolic variable as a path specification. You can use symbolic parameters to represent a search path in the context of the default search path, the location of the install tree, or the locale.

If a directory supports more than one type of file, the file types are processed in the following order:

For each file type, its files are processed in alphabetical order by file name.

The Arbortext-path\custom directory is processed at startup. If you add custom applications and document types after startup, they're not recognized during the session. If you're using Arbortext Editor, it needs to be closed and restarted. If you're using Arbortext Publishing Engine, you need to stop and restart the Arbortext Publishing Engine to re-initialize the Arbortext PE sub-processes.