27.5.3 How to Manage Multiple .OMC Files

The configuration of the customized menus can be saved as an .omc file, which can be easily shared with your others. The .omc files should be placed in the User Files Folder, the Group Folder and the Installation Folder of Origin. By Default, all of the .omc files in these folders will be automatically listed under the Preference: Menu. Origin will first list the .omc files under the User Files Folder, then the Group Folder and then the Installation Folder of Origin. The order of the files in the same folder is determined by the alphabetical order of the file names.

The omc.ini file can help you manage the .omc files easily. With the omc.ini file, you can

Set the maximum number of the files which will be listed under Preference: Menu.
Change the display order of these files under Preference: Menu.
Set an .omc file as the default option under Preference: Menu.

Note:

The omc.ini can be saved in the User Files Folder or the Group Folder or the Installation Folder of Origin. And it can only manage the .omc files in the same folder.

The organization of an omc.ini file

An omc.ini file should contain two sections. The first section is called Conifg, which can be used to set the maximum number of files in a folder that will be listed under Preference: Menu and also the display order of the files. The other section is called Options, which can be used to set an .omc file as the default menu option under Preference: Menu.

Suppose we have four .omc files ImageProcessing.omc, Curve Fititng.omc, Statistics.omc and SignalProcessing.omc in the User Files Folder. And we only want the first three files to be shown. The desired display order is Statistics.omc, ImageProcessing.omc and CurveFitting.omc. Also, the ImageProcessing.omc should be set as default. The following omc.ini file should be:

[Config]
NumOMCLevels=3
;Menu will ordered as the file list below
OMCFile1=Statistics
OMCFile2=ImageProcessing
OMCFile3=CurveFitting
 
[Options]
; Default selected menu
OMCLevel=ImageProcessing

Note:

Origin will automatically keep the last menu selection under Preference: Menu as the default settings. So the default option in the omc.ini will take effect only when no .omc file under Preference: Menu has been accessed.
No omc.ini file will be shipped with Origin. So you should create an omc.ini file yourself if you wish the manage the omc files.

An Example to create an omc.ini file

In this section, we will give an example to show you how to create an omc.ini file under Windows Operation System which is used in the previous section.

Create a new Text Document in the User Files Folder. And the file extension should be .txt (The file extension may be hidden according to your OS settings. You can select Organize: Folder and search options menu in Windows 7 to open the dialog, and then go to the View tab. In the Advanced Settings group, disable the Hide extensions for known file types check box). Then change the file extension from .txt to .ini. After that, rename the file as omc.ini.
We then use Notepad to open the omc.ini file. Copy the text which has been shown in the previous section and paste into the omc.ini file. Then, save the omc.ini file and close it.
Restart Origin and you can find that only the first 3 menus are listed under Preference: Menu.