# Command Line Options

PinballY has a few command-line options that can be specified when launching the program. When you launch a Windows program by double-clicking its program .EXE file, you're launching it without any command-line options. If you want to add options, you have to use one of the other ways of launching a program:

- From the Windows desktop, press Windows+R to open the Run dialog, then type in the command line, starting with the program name, including its full file path
- Open a CMD prompt and enter the command there
- Create a Windows desktop shortcut to PinballY.EXE, and type the command line into the Target box, starting with the program name (including its full path). After creating the shortcut, you can double-click the shortcut file to launch the program with the options. This is the easiest way if you plan to use the same options on every future launch, since it stores them with the shortcut so that you don't have to type them again on every launch.

When constructing a command line (for any of those methods), it's always a good idea to put quotes around the program file path, so that Windows doesn't get confused by any embedded spaces or other special characters:

`"c:\PinballY\PinballY.exe" /Settings:D:/MyFiles`

## Basic syntax

Options are all listed after the program name, separated by spaces. Unless otherwise specified in the notes about the individual options, the order of the options doesn't matter. If an option contains any spaces, enclose the entire option in double quotes.

## List of options

/GameStats:directory
Specifies the directory to use for the game stats file (GameStats.csv), where PinballY stores game metadata that applies to both configured and unconfigured games. If this isn't specified, GameStats.cvs is located in the PinballY program folder. You can use this to specify an alternative location. This can be useful, for example, if you want to store your databases on a network drive so that they can be shared with other machines on your LAN.

/jsdebug
Enables the Javascript debugging service, so that you can use a separate Javascript debugger program, such as the Chrome Dev Tools, to connect to PinballY's Javascript engine to inspect and debug your scripts interactively. See Javascript Debugging for details on this option.

/Settings:directory
Specifies the directory to use for the settings file (Settings.txt). If this isn't specified, the settings file is located in the PinballY program folder. You can use this to specify an alternative location. This can be useful, for example, if you want to store your settings on a network drive so that they can be shared with other machines on your LAN.