This preferences editor is accessible from menu Edit>Preferences. Here we can edit, backup and restore, general and advanced PDFE settings.
On this panel you can set a few general PDF Explorer options preferences.
1- Leave unchecked in order to get automatic database, and file, metadata update, when info fields are edited with the InfoEdit
tool. Changes will be automatically stored, without confirmation request, whenever metadata changes exist, and active grid row changes to another row.
If checked, user will be asked to confirm
changes before updating edited fields, but only if user doesn't explicitly express desire to store these changes, manually clicking the save button (CTRL+S).
2- When checked, the direct DiskTree scan method will search for supported files also within compressed archives such as .zip, .rar,.ace, and 7zip files.
3- Choose this checkbox to make PDFE remember some settings such as size and position of the window, scan method, preferences, and others. They will be saved when program closes, and set again at next startup.
4- Check it to use image smooth algorithms when showing images, and image thumbnails, in the images viewer/extractor tool. Uncheck it on low resources PC's if you experience speed, or resources, degradation when extracting images.
5 - When checked, a new column will be visible in the grid to show the grid row number. Useful for better referencing the grid row..
6- If checked, will force the program to start minimized. Useful when PDF Explorer is started at Windows start, to provide the web interface, or to maintain the background indexer active, and when user doesn't need to work directly with the GUI interface.
7- When program minimized, it will show the program icon in the system tray, not in the taskbar.
8- Will auto start the web server, at program startup.
9- If filled with a existing folder path, will force PDF Explorer to always start scanning at that particular folder, every time the program starts. Leave empty to use last running session scan mode. If you often change the content of a folder, you can choose this option to easily update the database just by starting the program.
10- Use it to custom define the assigned application to open that file type externally, when double clicking a file in the grid . Use it to override the default Shell assigned default application for that file type.
11- Click it to choose, from the list of available languages, the GUI interface language to use. The language files are stored in language files (.lng ), in the "Lang" sub-folder where the program is installed, usually "C:\Program Files\PDF Explorer". If you want to create a new translation, just duplicate the original English.lng and rename it to the English name of the new language. You can edit these .lng files using a simple text editor, i.e. Windows Notepad. File must be saved in plain text, and ANSI encoded.
This allow you to edit the appearance of the grids
Select one of the grid items in the Item list (ScanGrid, WorkGrid, InfoEdit) and choose the font you prefer. Choosing a Unicode True Type font is desirable in order to be able to correctly show characters in may languages, if there is that possibility, with the documents you want to manage with PDFE.
It is also possible to specify whether to maintain in the grid the last order, or to auto sort after each scan. Also whether to show the complete path of the file in the Filename column.
PDFE doesn't haves an embed PDF reader, and must use an external one. This tool is used to choose which external reader plugin to use.
Each option will be available only if the related software is present in your computer. For missing software, you will be offered a link to the official web site where you can download the software.
The Internet Explorer default option allows the use of PDF readers that do work embedded in Internet Explorer, but that PDFE can't control directly. PDFE will use the Internet Explorer as an interface control layer to that reader. This is the option to choose in order to use, as example, the Foxit PDF Reader and PDF-Xchange Viewer.
The NPAPI plugin option permits the utilization of the PDF reader plugins registered in the system. This type of plugins are used by browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Chrome, and are provided by the majority of the PDF reader applications. Very useful to use the excellent Sumatra PDF reader.
With the lister plugin option we can use a Total Commander PDF reader plugin type as our internal PDF reader.
On this panel you can find the PDF Explorer safety control options, used to restrict the use of some of the program features. These protected functionalities will continue to be available, but only to users that know the password, which will be asked whenever user want to access any of these features.
The simple activation of this option will also block the access to this PDFE preferences editor, and the database edit tool.
It is also possible to password protect the use of the InfoEdit tool , the use of the direct DiskTree scan mode, and all the other tools that can change documents content.
When any of these options is checked, a button with the figure of a lock
will be shown in the
info area of the active document.
Clicking this button will allow, at any time, the protected functionalities to be unlocked (of
course, you will be asked for the password). If in unlocked state, image shows an open lock, the locking can be set again by clicking in the lock image.
Use this editor to assign, or edit, keyboard shortcuts to listed program actions. Keyboard shortcuts are known to improve software usability, minimizing the dead time needed to navigate menus when using the mouse.
The categories list is used to better find the tool action we are looking for. You just need to select the tool action name from the actions list, focus the press new shortcut keyboard shortcut edit field, compose the shortcut pressing the keyboard group of keyboard keys we want to use as shortcut (can be any combination of the CTRL, ATL, or SHIT keys, plus any other key), and hit the assign button. Same action can have more than one shortcut assigned. From now on, related action tool will start when assigned keyboard shortcut(s) pressed.
This preferences editor Backup and Restore buttons are used to backup to an external file, or restore from a previous saved backup file, not only this editor editable preferences, but all the program settings.
