[Feature request]: Configure autostart behaviour via configuration file

[devtobi]

Version

• I'm using version 1.17.2

Existing requests

• I've checked Existing requests

Advanced Preferences

• I've checked Advanced Preferences

What operating system are you using?

Windows

Operating System Version

Windows 11 24H2

Problem description

I'd like to configure the autostart behvaviour via the configuration file. This is useful if the software is automatically installed on machines (together with a custom configuration file) and we don't want the user to have to enable this manually.

Possible solution

It would be great if the configured autostart behaviour (on/off) would be respected in the configuration file.
This way one could set autostart to true via the config file prior to starting the app.
When the app launches, the autostart could then be automatically enabled/disabled.

Alternative solutions

---

Additional information

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[hovancik]

Yeah this makes sense.

But I think it is then 3-state: don't do anything, set to autostart, set to not autostart. So not true/false, but some string. Or have 2 different variables. What do you think?

[devtobi]

Yeah this makes sense.

But I think it is then 3-state: don't do anything, set to autostart, set to not autostart. So not true/false, but some string. Or have 2 different variables. What do you think?

Why not just map the state of the checkbox in the UI to a boolean value?

If the value is not present in the configuration file (which would be the case if the software is opened the first time and the configuration file does not exist yet), then the initial value will be value false written to the configuration file.
As soon as the user enables the functionality via the UI (or a change of the value in the configuration file happens) the feature gets enabled.
I don't see a benefit of using the 3-state as the feature itself can only be on or off and a sync between the UI state and the configuration file would follow the same behavior as most of the other UI preferences.

[hovancik]

Yeah I guess you're right, I might be overthinking.

I thought we would separate intent of "what to try to do during Stretchly init" and the preference itself. So even if user disables autostart, next start will reenable it.