9.1: Preferences

This section explains the preferences dialog, accessed by opening "File" -> "Preferences".

The preferences window opens at the "General" tab. The first option is a text field for entering your e-mail address. This will be used for the "creator" and "maintainer" collection metadata items for new collections. The next option is a pull-down list of the languages in which the Librarian Interface can be presented. If you change the language by choosing one from the list, the Librarian Interface will restart itself in order to load the new language. A font specification text box is also supplied: a good setting for displaying Unicode is "Arial Unicode MS, BOLD, 14".

If "View Extracted Metadata" is checked, the various controls dealing with metadata always show all metadata that has been extracted automatically from documents. De-selecting it hides this metadata (although it is still available during collection design, and within the final Greenstone collection). If "Show file sizes" is checked, the file size is shown next to each file in the Workspace and Collection file trees in the Gather and Enrich views.

The "Mode" tab is used to control the level of detail within the interface. At its lowest setting, "Library Assistant", the design and format views are disabled. The user can add/remove documents, add/edit metadata and rebuild the collection. The Create panel is in its simple form. The "Librarian" mode provides access to all of the features of design and format, with the simple form of the Create pane. "Expert" mode includes the full Create pane, and allows the full output from the collection building to be recorded in the logs. To change or review modes, click the radio button next to the mode you are interested in. You can see what mode you are in by looking at the Librarian Interface's title bar.

The "Connection" tab lets you alter the path to the locally-running Greenstone library server, which is used when Previewing collections. It also lets you set proxy information for connecting to the Internet (e.g. when downloading files; see the Downloading Files from the Internet section for details). Check the box to enable proxy connection and supply details of the proxy host address and port number. The proxy connection is established when you close the Preferences dialog.

During the course of a session the Librarian Interface may give warning messages which inform you of possibly unforeseen consequences of an action. You can disable the messages by checking the "Do not show this warning again" box. You can re-enable warning messages using the "Warnings" tab. Check the boxes next to warning messages you want to see again.