Settings holds the app's behavior knobs, grouped by what they drive. Two rules keep it navigable: every knob explains itself in place (the score panels even show the live formula with your values bolded), and facts about you live in your Profile. Settings only mirrors them, read-only, with a pointer.
The persistent section list shows one group at a time, with the current
group highlighted. The selection also doubles as its address (for example
#/settings?section=price-data), so it can be bookmarked, reached with the
back button, or linked to from anywhere that needs to send you here. Moving
between sections does not discard edits you have not saved yet.
The groups
- License (commercial edition): your trial status or who the copy is licensed to, the key field, and a link to where licenses are sold for anyone who doesn't have a key yet. The 30-day clock begins on the first commercial launch. A licensed copy keeps a Replace license key disclosure for an upgrade key, and Remove from this computer confirms before it deactivates. Your data stays put either way. A lapsed trial makes the app read-only, not locked: your portfolio still opens, and every CSV export still works. “Read-only” has the exact boundaries listed below; editing the portfolio or plan and updating its market data are what a license restores. A license also includes 12 months of updates, and this panel names the date yours runs through. Nothing happens to the app when that date passes: your licence stays valid, every version you already have keeps working, and prices and imports carry on exactly as before. What lapses is only your entitlement to newer releases. RangefinderInvest displays the date but does not use it to gate installation, startup, or features. Renewing is optional, never automatic, and picks up where the last window ended rather than from the day you pay. Licences bought before this model existed carry no date at all and cover every version. They show who the copy is licensed to and nothing about updates.
- Updates (commercial edition): whether the app asks rangefinderinvest.com about once a day whether a newer version exists, and a Check now button that works whichever way that toggle is set.
- Price data: the global price source, your Tiingo API key (stored locally, never in the database or its backups), and the one-click TSP fund import. A notice appears here while neither source can download, since that's what makes Update Prices fail.
- Charts: the curated comparison tickers behind every "vs" dropdown, and which one is the default.
- Withdrawals: defaults for funding a withdrawal, plus the two signals behind the Rebalancing banner: the equity drawdown band and the reserve floor. The lot method and assumed tax rates shown here are Profile mirrors.
- Projection: assumed inflation (the today's-dollars deflator) and the horizon age; birth date, filing status, and tax facts mirror the Profile.
- Classic score and Peer-group score: two groups, one per half of the score: the classic score is the Screener's Score column, ranked across the whole universe; the peer-group score is the optional Peer score column, ranked within a fund's own category. Each shows every weight behind it with its formula live, and keeps its longer method and coverage notes under a disclosure. Changes apply immediately; Reset restores the defaults. What you tune here is stored with the portfolio, not with this computer: a backup carries it, a restore on another machine scores the same way, and a sample you open is scored with the sample's settings rather than yours.
- AI assistant: off until you turn it on, and the only panel here that can grant anything outside the app. It covers both doors: the master switch and setup config for an AI client you already run, and the backend for the app's own Assistant page: Anthropic's API under a key you provide, or a server you run yourself. Below them sit the three permission rows that govern both, and a log of everything either has done. See AI assistant access and Assistant.
What read-only means after the trial
The enforcement lives in the desktop app's main process, behind every
renderer call. Disabled controls explain the state, but they are not the
security boundary. Withdrawals and Projection close entirely, because
every knob in them is protected. Price data and Charts stay usable;
clearing the Tiingo key, turning Yahoo off and editing the comparison list are
all still allowed. A refused save therefore says so in place, in red, under the
button, rather than leaving the typed value on screen with nothing saved. If license status is still loading or cannot be read,
protected writes stay closed while the portfolio remains visible. A failed
check says License status unavailable, never “trial ended,” and offers
Retry license status in both the persistent strip and this License panel.
If config.json was already malformed or unreadable when the desktop app
opened, the strip names that broader launch problem instead: the conventional
local database stays visible for reading, protected changes stay paused, and
the app shows the exact config path to repair before reopening. It does not
replace the uncertain file, reset the trial, or treat hidden license,
database-location, Assistant-spend, or MCP-token state as empty defaults.
You keep:
- Every view and report over stored data, calculations that do not save a portfolio change, CSV export, and file parse/preview steps.
- Backups and recovery: create, list, delete and restore backups; change backup settings; open or move a database; load/reset a sample; return to your portfolio; or use the confirmed Start fresh privacy erase.
- License activation, replacement and removal; the local terms-acceptance record; automatic-update settings and manual update checks.
- Appearance, accessibility and report-display preferences, including
localStorage-backed theme/accessibility and acknowledgement state, the benchmark/comparison display, concentration threshold, the Screener's scoring weights and peer-score settings, and the onboarding checklist. - An already-configured Assistant's read/compute work. It may draft a model for review, but Save as model remains an edit and is refused.
- Security shutdown: clear an Assistant credential, clear the Tiingo key without changing the selected source, rotate the MCP access token, or turn Yahoo, AI connections, web-address/LAN access and web search off.
You cannot change until activation: Profile and owner facts, accounts, transactions, opening balances, snapshots, Target Models and their funds, ticker metadata, ladder plans, imports/undo/reconciliation, saved Projection scenarios, splits or prices. Price/profile/TSP/provider downloads remain off. You also cannot add or replace credentials, change price/Python/Assistant backend setup, or switch an AI/network capability on. Update checking is the one connection toggle that remains available in either direction.
The small local writes behind recovery, privacy erase, derived report caches, Assistant activity/bookkeeping and the named preferences above are deliberate exceptions. There is no general Settings exception and no general deletion exception.
If a number here surprises you, check whether it's a knob or a mirror. Mirrors change in your Profile, and every mirror says so in its hint.