Settings

Audience: Event organisers and operators setting up Manager on a computer.

What each page of Settings controls. Settings belong to the computer running Manager and apply to every event on it; many are only defaults that each event can change for itself in Event details.

Opening Settings

Click the cog at the top of the Events list. The pages are listed down the left, in five groups: Global registry, Printing, Integrations and devices, System and Appearance. The top bar shows the version of the page you're using and of the server.

Most pages show Unsaved changes with Save and Discard at the bottom once you change something; nothing applies until you save. A few save as you go instead: the Club registry and Competitor registry, Printers, Live standby and This computer. Access protection has its own Set PIN button. Some settings only take effect when the server next starts, and say so: AI assistants, Allow access from other devices on the network and Enable HTTPS.

Settings aren't part of an event. They stay on this computer, so a backup or an event moved to another computer doesn't take them along. See Moving an event to another computer.

Global registry

Lists that every event on this computer shares.

Club registry and Competitor registry

The clubs and people Manager knows, used to suggest names, clubs and card numbers as you type and at the registration desk. They can be refreshed from Eventor. See Club Registry and Competitor Registry.

Hire card registry and Other hire registry

The pool of hire-card numbers your club lends out, each with an optional Owner, and the other things you lend: compasses, map boards. Shared by every event on this computer.

• Hire card registry — type card numbers into Quick add card numbers (commas or spaces, and ranges such as 1001-1010), or use Range from / Range to and Add range. With a SportIdent reader connected you can instead read each card on it to add it; Connect card reader appears here when none is connected (it is the same reader card download uses). Tick cards in the list to Set owner, Clear owner or Remove selected, or use Clear all. Click Save when you're done.
• Other hire registry — Add item, give it an Item name and optional owner, and either say How many you have (0 if you don't count them) or turn on Individually numbered and list its Item numbers (ranges such as 1-30 are expanded).

See Hire items.

Custom fields

Extra fields recorded against every competitor, beyond the built-in ones. Shared across all events, so the same set is there for every event you run.

• Each field has a name of your choosing and holds either text or a number. The type decides how the value sorts in a column: a Number field sorts numerically, so 9 comes before 10 rather than after it. Values are always stored as text either way, and a value that can't be read as a number sorts last.
• Use Move up / Move down to set the order fields appear in, everywhere they are shown.
• Renaming a field keeps the values competitors already hold. Removing one hides it without deleting those values, so adding the field back under the same name brings them with it — under different wording it is a new, empty field.
• Fields appear on the Custom fields tab of a competitor, on a Competitor registry entry, and as optional columns in the Competitors list and the Competitor registry table. In the Competitors list they are off by default (turn them on from the Columns menu); in the registry table they are shown by default.
• Values recorded on a Competitor registry entry follow that person into every event they enter: they are copied onto the competitor when you import entries from Eventor or from an IOF XML entry list, and when you pick the person from the registry in the Edit Competitor dialog. A value already on the competitor always wins, so re-importing an entry list never overwrites a correction you made in the event — it only fills in fields that are still blank.
• For an IOF XML file, the link relies on the file carrying the athlete's IOF ID. Entry lists exported by Eventor normally do; a file without it cannot be tied to a registry person, so those competitors arrive with the fields blank. Card number and name are deliberately not used for the match, because hire cards change hands.
• Custom fields go into the CSV entry-list export and into Orienteering JSON files, and the CSV entry import reads them back (a column is matched to a field by its name). They are not in IOF XML, which has nowhere to put them, nor on results or splits printouts.
• If you have enabled AI assistants (MCP), custom fields are among the competitor details an assistant can read. Bear that in mind for anything sensitive, such as a phone number.

Printing

Every printer, and what is printed on it. The full guide is Printing splits.

• Printers — every printer Manager can print on, and every computer it is open on, drawn as a live map and then listed: printers on the network, printers plugged into the server's computer (through Windows, or the print system of a Mac or Linux computer), and USB printers plugged into a laptop running Manager. Each printer has a name (where it stands — Lane A, Results board), its own paper width (except a printer drawn for its driver in Windows, whose paper size Windows sets), and either its characters per line and paper cut (a thermal printer) or its text size, boldness and line spacing (a printer drawn for its driver). Add a printer starts by asking where it is plugged in. A laptop's USB printer is shared with every computer to begin with, while Manager is open on that laptop. This computer shows the printer plugged into the computer you are at and where its splits and labels print; Set up here before? lets a laptop opened at a new web address pick up the setup it had. Nothing on this page waits for the Settings Save button: a printer is saved from its own dialog, and a computer's choices apply as you make them.
• Splits print — the Default splits printer (or Not printed; it must be a printer every computer may use), where each computer's splits print, and then when a slip prints and what is on it: auto-print on download, whether a mis-punch printout is held while you correct the class and for how long, logo, top 3 places, the mistakes and strong legs sections, splits language, and the QR code. Each event can override when and what in Event details → Printing.
• Result labels — a small printout per competitor for the results board, independent of the splits, and laid out as the splits print is. Where: the label printer (Not printed, the splits printer straight after the splits, or a printer of its own; like the default splits printer, one every computer may use) and where each computer's labels print. When: its own switch (off to begin with) and its own mis-punch hold. Layout: three rows with a place at the left, centre and right of each, set separately for Individual and Relays (Layout for), the Space above the label and Space below the label, a preview and Test print.
• Upgrading from a version before printers and computers: see What an upgrade does to printing.
• Radio downloads — whether a card read by a radio download station and sent over the meshO network prints its splits and label, and where, since no computer read it. Each event can override these.

Integrations and devices

Eventor

Connects Manager to Eventor, to create events from it, import entries and start times, refresh the registries, and upload start lists and results.

• Enable Eventor, then your Host name, API key and Organisation ID (your organisation's number in Eventor, which scopes the events shown and the competitors and clubs fetched; use 1 to fetch all competitors and clubs).
• Event history — how far back the import picker lists events: Future only (the default, and quickest), Include past week, Include past month or Include past 6 months. Each extra month of history is another request to Eventor.
• Events list — Show upcoming Eventor events on the events list offers them beside your own, so you can create an event from one with a click. Choose Organisations (an association brings in its clubs' events too; save the host and API key first so the list can be fetched), enter text for Event name contains, or both. With neither, no Eventor events are shown.

See Creating an event from Eventor.

Cloud sync

Publishes events to the meshO cloud (events.mesho.live), where spectators can browse their results online. It is set up out of the box: the Cloud URL points at the meshO cloud, and the Push token field is left blank because Manager carries its own token for that server.

• Publish events to the cloud automatically when they are finished is on to begin with. When you finish an event (or use Mark finished), it is queued and uploaded in the background — you do not wait for it, and nothing about finishing changes.
• No internet at the venue is fine. The queue is kept with the event on disk, so you can finish, close the laptop and drive home: the event goes up the next time this computer is online, including after a restart. While an event is live nothing is uploaded, so the upload never competes with radio punches or live results for the venue's connection.
• Each event card shows where it stands with a small grey cloud beside the status chip: a tick once it is on the cloud (hover for when), a clock while it is waiting. A cloud with an exclamation mark, in the warning colour, means something waiting will not fix — a refused token, or an event larger than the cloud accepts — and hovering says which.
• Turning automatic sync off stops new events being queued and also pauses any that are already waiting, so it is the way to stop an upload that has not happened yet. You can still publish any event by hand with its Push to cloud action.
• Test connection checks the server at Cloud URL answers and is a cloud server; save your changes first.
• Running your own cloud server? Put its address in Cloud URL and its token in Push token. Manager's own token is only ever sent to the meshO cloud, never to another server. Clearing the Cloud URL turns cloud sync off altogether.
• What gets published is the whole event — competitors' names, clubs and results — on a public site. If an event should not be public (a training run, a private club event), turn its automatic sync off before you finish it: each event can decide for itself in Event details → Cloud sync, whatever this setting says. Some events are never published automatically: one finished before its own date (a rehearsal or a test), one run in test mode, one with fewer than five results (a finish, a mispunch, a retirement or a disqualification each count; runners with no status, still out or not starting do not), and a sample event, which starts with its automatic sync off. You can still publish any of them with Push to cloud.
• Event details → Cloud sync also lists every time the event has been synced (when, whether it was published, updated or deleted, whether that was automatic or by hand, and how much was uploaded), links to its page on the cloud, and has Delete from the cloud, which takes it off the public site. The event on your computer is not touched, and its automatic sync is switched off, so finishing it again does not put it back.
• For what a cloud copy shows and hides, and how it compares with liveresultat, see Publishing live results online.

Live standby

Lets a second meshO Manager on the network keep a live copy of every event in progress, ready to take over if this computer fails: the switch that allows it, this computer's address and pairing code to type on the standby, what else the standby copies (settings and PIN, the HTTPS certificate, printers and computers, the registries), and which standbys are following now. See Live standby.

Radio punches

meshO Prime and the radio-punch connections, on one page:

• meshO Prime — Use meshO Prime for radio punches: the default for new events. Each event can change it on Event details → Radio controls. See Connecting meshO Prime and radios.
• Radio punch forwarding — sends radio punches on to other timing software over TCP: TCP host, TCP port (10000 to begin with), Protocol (SIRAP, the default, or OE12) and Client name, with Test connection.
• Radio punch listening — accepts SIRAP punches from another system on a Listen port (10000 to begin with).

See Forwarding and receiving punches.

Video

What this server does with the pictures a camera sends it (cameras themselves are set up on the device holding them, at /info → Camera — see Info screens). A change applies to the next camera that starts sending; one already sending keeps what it started with.

Setting	To begin with	What it does
Record cameras by default	On	Whether a camera records as well as showing a live picture, unless whoever sets it up turns that off for theirs.
Keep recordings for (days)	30	How long a recording is held before Manager tidies it away. 0 keeps them until you delete them yourself.
Minutes per recording file	10	How much each file covers.
Picture quality (kbit/s)	1500	What a camera is asked to encode at, with the resulting MB per hour shown beside it.
Stop recording below (MB free)	2048	The disk floor recording gives way at, so a full disk can't take the event down with it. The live picture keeps working.
Ride out a dropped connection for (seconds)	120	How long a camera holds pictures it can't send, and how long its recording waits for it. 0 turns it off.

Each field accepts values within a set range, and a value outside it is brought back inside. Recordings are kept on this server only, outside the event folder, so they are in no event backup and no cloud sync; they are tidied away some time after their event is deleted.

System

Event defaults

Defaults for events. Most are copied into a new event when it's created, so changing them later doesn't change events you already have; each event changes its own in Event details. The page has four parts:

• Starts
  • Punching starts override allocated starts — whether a start-unit punch replaces an allocated start time, for a new event. See Punched starts.
  • Time runners with no start from check punch or midnight — on to begin with. Unlike the others, this one isn't copied: every event follows it unless it has chosen otherwise on its Starts tab, so changing it re-scores any running event that follows it. See A runner with no start time.
• Timing system — Timing card system: SportIdent or EMIT, for a new event. An event can change it during setup.
• Replay mode — Default replay speed (0.5x to 100x), for replaying a captured event, a testing and training tool.
• Leaderboard screen defaults — how a new leaderboard screen starts: Club display (Hide, Full names or Abbreviations), Show club logo, Max radios per class and Competitor time display (Elapsed, Difference or Both). Each screen changes its own. See Creating screens.
• Start/finish/check radio control codes — Start codes, Finish codes and Check codes: the codes your start, finish and check units punch as, comma-separated, for a new event. A radio punch carries only a code, so these are how Manager tells a start or finish from a control on the course. A code can't be in more than one box. See Start, Finish and Check codes. To use one of the course's numbered controls as its start or finish instead, see Starting or finishing at a numbered control.

Whether an event is timed to fractions of a second isn't a default: each event decides it with Use sub-second timing in its own Event details. See Timing to the second or to fractions of a second.

Server

• This computer's name and LAN IP, and how to rename the computer for a friendlier address.
• HTTP port — 5154 to begin with.
• Allow access from other devices on the network — on to begin with. Off, only this computer can open Manager. Takes effect the next time the server starts.
• Access links — the links to give every other device: Manager, Registration, Spectator, Kiosk, Info screens and Commentary, each by name and by IP (and over HTTPS too once that's on), with a copy button and Show QR code to open one on a phone. See Reaching the server: name or IP.
• Enable HTTPS (for download / station-backup machines) — off to begin with. Laptops other than the server need a secure link to use a card reader. Once it's on: HTTPS port (5155 to begin with), Install certificate on the server, and the certificate to download for other devices. Takes effect the next time the server starts. See HTTPS and certificates.

Access protection

Sets a PIN that has to be entered before any manager screen, including the Events list, event editing and Settings, can be opened; the registration desk asks for it too. The arena screens, the spectator site and the kiosk stay public; the commentary screen and the info screens that show results ask for it only while a class is in a results quarantine. Set one whenever the event's network is shared with people who shouldn't be editing it.

Type the PIN twice (at least 4 characters) and click Set PIN; afterwards the same place offers Change PIN and Remove PIN, which asks for the current PIN first. A forgotten PIN can be cleared from the tray or menu bar on the server computer: Reset Access Protection PIN.

Auto update

Automatically install updates downloads and installs new versions as they come out, and restarts the server. Check for updates checks now, and offers Update now when a newer version is out. Update notices are hidden while an event is live. See Updating.

AI assistants

Both ways of using AI with meshO Manager, on one page:

• The built-in assistant adds an Ask button to every event, which answers questions about using meshO Manager and, if you allow it, about the open event. To begin with it answers only questions about using meshO Manager; takes effect straight away. Needs an internet connection. See Built-in assistant.
• Connect your own assistant (MCP) lets an assistant you run, such as the Claude desktop app, read the live event: Allow AI assistants to connect, which shows the Address for your assistant to copy, and Let your own assistant make changes. Both are off to begin with, and both need a server restart. See AI assistants (MCP).

Logging

Log level: how much detail Manager writes to its log file — Verbose, Debug, Info, Warning (the default) or Error. Every event's audit trail is always recorded, whatever this says. Leave it alone unless support asks. See Where the logs are.

Auto backup

The defaults for automatic backups while an event is running: Auto backup enabled (off to begin with), how often (5, 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes; 15 to begin with), and how many to keep per event (1, 2, 5, 10 or All; 5 to begin with). Backups go into an auto-backup folder inside the event's folder. Each new event starts with these, and changes its own on Event details → Backup & export. See Backup and restore.

Appearance

This computer

Settings for the browser you're using, saved on this computer only, plus the default language and the other screens' themes, which apply to everyone:

• Computer name — shown in the audit trail against every change made here. Leave it empty and the computer is listed by its network address instead. See Naming a computer.
• Default language — the language every computer and screen starts in. Applies to everyone.
• Language on this computer — overrides the default for this browser only; Use the default follows it.
• Interface scale — how large Manager draws on this screen. Automatic (fit to screen) says what it has chosen.
• Theme — Follow the device, Light or Dark for Manager on this computer only.
• Other screens — the same choice for Registration, Commentary, Kiosk and Spectator. These screens have no settings page of their own, so their theme is set here and applies to everyone connecting to this Manager. An arena screen's theme is set on that screen instead (see Creating screens), and the info screens each keep their own.

Where settings are kept

Everything on these pages except This computer is stored in Manager's app-data folder on the server computer:

Computer	Folder
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\meshO Manager
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/meshO Manager
Linux	~/.local/share/meshO Manager

In that folder:

What	File
Every page that has a Save button — including the hire registries and custom fields — and the PIN (kept only in scrambled form, never as the PIN itself), the default language and the other screens' themes	meshO Manager.yaml
Club registry and Competitor registry	Clubs.json and Competitors.json
Printers and computers	Printers.json and Computers.json
Live standby	LiveStandby.json
The HTTPS certificate	the certs folder
The log files	the logs folder
Video recordings	the Video folder

This computer's own settings — its name, language, interface scale and Manager theme — are kept by the browser, so they belong to that browser on that computer and not to the server, and clearing the browser's site data loses them.

Change settings in Settings rather than in the file. Manager checks what it is given there, and it can overwrite a hand-edited file while it's running. Events are kept separately; see Where backups are kept.

There's no button to put every setting back to how it started.

Related

• Download, install and update
• Printing splits
• Built-in assistant
• AI assistants (MCP)
• HTTPS and certificates
• Connecting meshO Prime and radios
• Moving an event to another computer
• Live standby
• Publishing live results online
• Multi-operator setup — what the access PIN protects