Administration > Environment Variables > APTCUSTOM — Specifying Alternate Path to the Custom Directory
  
APTCUSTOM — Specifying Alternate Path to the Custom Directory
The Arbortext-path\custom directory has several subdirectories where you can place custom script or application files and custom dictionaries, document types, fonts, graphics, entities, framesets, tag templates, and other customizations. You can specify a path or path list for an alternate location of the top level custom directory. You can supply a different name for the top level custom directory, but the subdirectory structure of the alternate directory must be the same as the default custom directory structure. You can use the %D symbolic parameter in the path list to include default locations.
Besides referring to a directory structure, you can also use APTCUSTOM to refer to a custom directory stored in a compressed zip file. In this case, you can host your customizations on a web server and refer to them with a URL. This is the only case where a path specified as a URL is supported. If you use a zip file to distribute your customizations, Arbortext Editor unzips those customizations to a directory in the Arbortext Editor cache directory (.aptcache\zc). At start up, Arbortext Editor checks to see whether the zip file has been updated. If it has, Arbortext Editor downloads and uncompresses the updated customizations. If not, Arbortext Editor continues to use the customizations stored in the local cache.
In addition to using APTCUSTOM to refer to a custom directory, you can also refer a directory containing an application or content management system adapter. These directories can either be uncompressed or in a compressed zip file. Applications and adapters referred to by APTCUSTOM are processed before applications and adapters referred to by the APTAPPLICATION and APTADAPTERS environment variables.
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You must set up anonymous file access to be able to place custom zip files on a Windchill server. Windchill makes the zipped custom directories available by designating a special anonymous access folder whose contents will be made available over anonymous HTTP. The HTTP access is anonymous so the user is not presented with an unexpected credentials prompt during Arbortext Editor startup.
For more information, see Anonymous Arbortext Access in the Windchill Help Center.
Examples:
set APTCUSTOM=c:\custom1;d:\custom2;%D

set APTCUSTOM=http://server/files/custom.zip;%D

set APTCUSTOM=\\host\share\custom;http://server/files/application.zip;%D
In the examples, the default custom directory is included if you use the symbolic variable %D.