Hotswitches can be thought of as mini-configurations. Pushing a hotswitch button loads a collection of *.settings files. In contrast to the File>Open method for specifying either single programs' settings (Save/Load Configuration) or all programs' settings (Save/Load Configuration Set), the hotswitch configurations allow one to specify small subsets of program settings, and to switch rapidly from one mini-configuration to the next. Through the hotswitch sub-GUI, hs_config, users specify the file directory to store the collection of settings files associated with each hotswitch button.
A hotswitch can also, instead of loading a collection of *.settings files, invoke a user function. For example, a hotswitch button can be assigned to a function that modifies the amplitude of a custom pulse, or to a function that analyzes the last-saved data file.