When started on UNIX ACT will potentially look in 5 different places for files to examine for configuration information. (On other operating systems it just uses the default configuration). ACT reads from the locations in order, so the user can override the default options. This is the search order:
The standard ACT options are read first. On UNIX this file is in the file etc/options in the ACT distribution directory. Changing that file will change the options settings for all users.
If the user has specified an options file on the command line with the -options argument, it will be read next. (See the section called UNIX Command Line Arguments for ACT in Chapter 2).
If there is a file called diani.ini in the current directory it will be read. This is done for backwards compatibility.
If there is a file called options in the current directory it will be read.
If there is a file in the user's home directory called .artemis_options it will be read.