The MRP Collection Manager User’s Guide
Setting User Preferences
The Collectoin Manager lets you control certain aspects of its behavior via a Preferences dialog. This is accessed via the Preferences choice on the Options menu. The Preferences dialog is a tabbed dialog. Select the tab at the top to access preference choices related to different aspects of the MCM.
Images
The Images tab lets you specify certain aspects of the MCM’s handling of images.
- Show
image links as – Normally the Collection Manager will display image
links as thumbnails (except for links to images on remote computers, or
links to HTML files on the local computer, which are always displayed
textually). However, you can specify that you want image links to always
display as text. (This will cause the program to run a bit faster, since
it will not have to spend time generating thumbnail images. Also, the Item
Details display of your data will be somewhat more compact, since
thumbnail images require more space than text.)
- Maximum
thumbnail size – Specify the desired maximum size of thumbnails. The
specified dimensions are in pixels. The default for both height and width is
150 pixels. Values between 10 and 1000 are allowed. In creating the thumbnail, for display
on the Item Details view, the image will be scaled so that neither the
height nor the width exceed the specified maximums.
- Generate
highest-quality thumbnails when printing – There are two different
methods that the program uses to convert a full-size image into a
thumbnail. The faster of these methods is used to generate on-screen
thumbnails. But if you print Item
Details you have the option of requesting that a more complicated, but
slower, method be used, which may produce slightly higher-quality
images. The difference in image
quality is probably not noticeable, but if you are generating a printed
record of your collection, and you want the best possible images, you can
turn on this check box. (A thumbnail image will, of course, be no sharper
than the original image from which it is generated. But the goal is to
produce a thumbnail that looks as close to the original – except for the
smaller size – as possible.)
- Initial
size for image viewer windows – Specify the initial size for image
viewer windows. The default size is 600 pixels wide by 450 pixels high. If
your screen resolution is high, you may want the initial size to be
larger. Image windows are resizable, but rather than always having to
manually enlarge each image window, you may just prefer to have these
windows always be larger when initially displayed. The size specified is
in pixels. The minimum allowable size in either direction is 200 pixels;
the maximum is the pixel width/height of your screen.
Data Entry/Editing
The Data Entry/Editing tab provides access to two choices affecting the behavior of the window used for adding or editing data:
· Warn on illegal numeric or date field data – Normally, during data entry or editing, the Collection Manager allows you to enter any kind of data in any data field. If you would like the program to provide a little bit of checking, you can turn on this check box. If this choice is selected, the program will not let you exit a data-entry/editing screen if any of the numeric data fields (currency, dimension or number fields) contain non-numeric data or any of the date fields contain non-date data. Be advised, though, that the MCM’s rules for what is an allowable number or date are very lenient: “$123.45 or more” is treated as a valid number (because part of the text can be extracted and interpreted as a number) and “99-XYZ-2005” is treated as a valid date (because part of the text, 2000, can be interpreted as a year). Only values that cannot possibly be interepreted as numbers or dates will be flagged.
· Interpretation of numeric dates – This choice lets you control how the program interprets dates that you enter with numeric month and day values (e.g. 10/11/2006). By default such dates are interpreted by the “American” convention of month-before-day. Choose European style to have the interpretation be day-before-month. The only effect of this choice is on sorting: When sorting is by a date column, the program tries to convert the text value in the date field into a valid date, and then does chronological sorting. The results of sorting can differ, depending upon whether numeric dates are being interpreted by American or European conventions. For example, 10/11/2006 is earlier than 11/10/2006 by American sorting, but 10/11/2006 is later than 11/10/2006 by European sorting.
· Height (in lines) of long-text data-entry boxes – The data-entry/editing window normally provides text-entry boxes that are 5 lines high. (The boxes are scrollable, both horizontally and vertically, so you can always access and edit longer text, but the visible portion shows 5 lines by default.) If you prefer boxes that display fewer or more lines, you can select a number here (between 2 and 20).
Item Details
The Item Details tab lets you control several aspects of the way data is displayed or printed for the Item Details view:
· Display font - The font used when displaying or printing Item Details is normally Times New Roman. However, if you prefer a different font, you can select one from the drop-down list. (Though the drop-down list only lists four fonts, you can also type in any other font name that corresponds to a font that is installed on your system. But be careful if you type in a font name, because an unrecognized name will result in the Item Details view being displayed in some font other than the one you expected.)
· Normal or compact display – Normally each field is displayed on a different line in the Item Details window. If you prefer a more compact display, in which more than one field is displayed on a line if the fields are short enough, then select the Allow multiple fields on a line (compressed display) radiobutton. This choice also affects printing of Item Details.
· Pagination when printing Item Details for all items – When you select Print Details for All Entries from the File menu, normally each entry is printed on a new page. If your entries are short, then this may result in quite a bit of empty space on each page. If you prefer a more compact printout format, select the Allow multiple entries per page radiobutton, in which case the program will not automatically skip to the top of the next page for each item. Rather, if there is still adequate space available on the current page, the next record will be begun on the same page (separated from the prior record by a horizontal line). Note: The most compact printout of your data can be achieved by using both this option and the compact display option discussed just above, as well as switching to Small Font on the Options menu prior to printing. The size of thumbnail images also affects the page space required for printing; you can reduce the thumbnail image size from the Images tab of the Preferences dialog.
· Slide show interval – The Options menu of the collection window contains a Start Slide Show choice (available only when displaying Item Details). If this is selected, then the current Item Details is displayed for an interval, and then the display automatically moves to the next record. The preference specified here determines the length of time, in seconds, that each Item Details is displayed before switching to the next record. By default this interval is 10 seconds. Any value between 1 second and 300 seconds (5 minutes) is allowed.
Note: Several other aspects of the Item
Details display are controlled from the menus and from other dialogs:
· The order of displayed fields is controlled from the dialog invoked by the Detail Field Order on the Options menu.
· Normally the Item Details view shows all fields that contain data. But you can limit the Item Details display (or printout) to just those fields that are currently included in the List view. Selecting Limit Item Details to Only Fields Shown in List on the Options menu does this. Note that the order of the fields shown in the Item Details display will also be the same as that shown in the List view if you select this option. This allows you to create a completely custom Item Details display (choice of items and their order) by creating a field profile (see Creating and using Field Profiles for details on how to do this) that has just the fields you want to see, in the order you want to see them. Then switch the List view to use this profile (using Set Field Selection from Profile, described above) and turn the Limit Item Details to Only Fields Shown in List toggle on. Now, when you switch to the Item Details display, you will see the custom field selection/order that you desire.
Auto-save
The Auto-save tab lets you control whether the program should automatically save your collection back to disk on a regular basis. Normally no auto-save is done. To enable auto-save, click the Auto-save button and also specify an auto-save interval, in minutes. If auto-save is enabled, the program will check every time the specified interval has elapsed, and if any changes have been made to your collection, the collection will be saved to disk, just as if you had chosen Save from the File menu. (Auto-save will not write the collection back to the disk if nothing has been changed.)
Note: When auto-save is not enabled, you will be prompted whether to save your changes when you close the collection or exit the program, if any changes have been made to the collection since the last time the collection was saved. If auto-save is enabled, then any unsaved changes will automatically be saved, without prompting. If you find the prompts annoying, but don’t actually want auto-save, you can achieve this effect by enabling auto-save, setting the auto-save interval to a very large value (for example, 10000 minutes). This way no timer-based saving will occur, but, when you close the collection or exit the application, any unsaved changes will be saved, without any additional prompting.
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