title: Maven: How to use properties from settings.xml via settings. prefix?
body: <p>When I add settings to settings.xml in this way...</p>
  
  <pre><code>  &lt;profiles&gt;
      &lt;profile&gt;
          &lt;id&gt;outsorced-project-properties&lt;/id&gt;
          &lt;properties&gt;
              &lt;key.password&gt;mysecretpassword&lt;/key.password&gt;
          &lt;/properties&gt;
      &lt;/profile&gt;
    &lt;/profiles&gt;
  
    &lt;activeProfiles&gt;
      &lt;activeProfile&gt;outsorced-project-properties&lt;/activeProfile&gt;
    &lt;/activeProfiles&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>..then I can use ${key.password} with my project's pom.xml. This works but seems to be a little bit inconvenient.</p>
  
  <p>In <a href="http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/MavenPropertiesGuide" rel="nofollow">MavenPropertiesGuide</a> thers is an information that you can use settings from settings.xml via settings. prefix.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Local user settings</p>
    
    <p>Similarly, values in the user's settings.xml can be referenced using
    property names with settings. prefix.</p>
  
  <pre><code>${settings.localRepository} refers to the path of the user's local repository
  </code></pre>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>But this doesn't seem to work for me. At least I don't know how to define them within settings.xml. I tried to define them just within settings tag of settings.xml, or within a properties tag within the settings tags and so on, but the properties were never recognized. Did I understand anything wrong?</p>