>>Actually, a settings table with several records - one global, one per workstation, one per user, and a memo in each of them with XML or even a attribute=value list of pairs, and you can have a full hierarchy of settings if you want.
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>Wow, yes but I will leave the workstation setting the way it ir right now, ini file. I like the idea though
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>>Or you can have just one record, for the global. So your ini is in a memo in such a table. You can even copy it out on app start and read the settings the old way.
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>I will give this a thought but may raise issues when a user changes a global setting and the stuff needs to be merged back into the original memo

You can read the whole set of settings into a collection, and whenever anything is changed, a custom method of the collection can write everything back, so any global setting is effective immediately for anyone reading it. IOW, the technique would be simple, it's just a matter of deciding what happens when.