### Options

The"Options dialog" is the basic place for set or modify application parameters. Some parameters (eg. changes in panel dimensions) are stored automatically and some (the layout and appearance of the panels) are available only in the popup menus of Precision Helper. But the essential parameters of the application can be found in this dialog box.

Dialog is divided into categories (General, Appearance and External tools) and each category is divided into tabs, according to content and the importance of parameters. In this topic you can find the description of each category, tab and parameter.

General - System integration

- Show icon in notification area - shows the application icon in the notification area of the Windows Taskbar
- Minimize to notification area - if you minimize the application, it will not be displayed on the taskbar, but only in the notification area (it requires the option Show icon in notification area to be checked)
- Associate file extensions - by clicking this button, you can associate the HHP file type ( Microsoft HTML Help Project ) for opening in the Precision Helper application. To execute this action in the Microsoft Windows Vista, first execute the application as an administrator (because it requires the elevation of user access rights to the administrator's rights).
- Remove associations - by clicking this button, you can remove the previously described association (it requires the elevation of user access rights too)

General - Project defaults

- Default projects folder - an initial folder for all of the system file selection dialogs used in the application. If you want to always display the last opened folder, leave the field blank.
- Default project format - help file format, that is used for creating a new project (Microsoft Compiled Html Help)
- Maximum recently opened projects - maximum count of recently opened projects, that are kept in the history (eg. displayed in the recently opened lists)
- Open last project at startup - the last project will be opened automatically at next application start
- Show "Welcome page" after open last project - by default the last shown navigation panel and its appropriate page will be displayed at start. If you select this option, the "Welcome page" will be displayed at application start.
- Save project files in UTF-8 encoding - allows to save project files in UTF-8 encoding (a project file itself, content files, index files, context help header files, etc. but not the topic files). Such a help compiler is required that supports this encoding.
- Save contents and index items as html encoded - allows saving of contents (.hhc) and index (.hhk) items in html encoding
- Automatically include all the project files into the "Files" section (when saving) - It tells the Precision Helper to automatically detect and include all the images, videos, style sheets, scripts and other files, used in your topics, into the FILES section of your help project. Inclusion of the files to this section is important for CHM compilation, because Microsoft Html Help Compiler does not automatically recognize some of the newer file formats (eg PNG, WMV, etc.). But all the files listed in this section are correctly included into the resulting help.

General - Editing

- Perform this action on adding topic:
  - Select from unused project files - opens the project file selection dialog in the "Unused files" place.
  - Select from all project files - opens the project file selection dialog in the "Project's files" place.
  - Create new blank topic - creates a new topic file in location, that you select
  - Create new topic from file - creates a new topic file in location, that you select, by copying an existing topic file, that you choose
  - Create new topic from template - creates a new topic file, based on selected template, in the location, that you choose
  - <no action> - in fact, this is the same as adding a new heading (inline editor for entering the item name will be activated)
- Open new topic in editor immediately after creation - it allows to automatically open an external editor for newly created topic in the table of contents or in the index of keywords). If you are using an embedded topics editor (new in version 2.0), uncheck this option.
- Always use topic title - by default, when you clean the content item name (resp. the keyword text), application will try to assign the name automatically from the topic title (or the topic filename). This option extends this behaviour also to the "Select a topic" action - for every topic selection the content item name will be assigned automatically.
- Show relative file pathes - all file pathes will be displayed relatively to the project file (in Included files editor, Project file selection dialog, etc.)
- Show source editor as a default tab in topic windows - you can switch between preview, editor and the TOC tree (or Index tree) by pressing the F12 keyboard shortcut. Also the F5 key can save the changes in editor and show the results in preview tab. If you want to display an editor (and not the preview) when the topic window is opened, check this option.
- Interval for auto popup code completion - enter the time interval in milliseconds. If you do not want to display this window in topic source editor automatically, enter zero (0) here. Code completion can be invoked anytime by pressing the Ctrl+Space keyboard shortcut.

General - Compilation

- Save project before compile - by default, the project file is automatically saved before the "Run" action only. This option will extend the automatic saving also to the "Compile" action.
- Show compilation progress dialog - compilation progress will be displayed in the modal dialog (otherwise the compilation progress will be displayed only in the status bar)
- Automatically close progress dialog on successfull compile - after a successful compilation, the dialog will be automatically closed (this option can be selected directly in compilation progress dialog)
- Show report log on compilation - when compilation starts, the Log file tab will be activated on panel of properties

General - Backup

- Backup configuration file - the configuration file will be backed up always, when the user saves the options and when the application closes (configuration file contains all application settings including projects list, builds list, quick launch buttons, etc.)
- Backup project files - project files will be backed up always, when the project is saved ("project files" means the project definition files, so not the topic files, images, etc.)
- Number of history backups - this defines the number of copies, that will be kept in history

Templates - Options for working with templates

Topic templates and project templates allow you to create a new help references with the help of predefined topics or even the whole projects. In this section you can setup some of their parameters.

- Show templates only for the current language - only the templates dedicated for currently selected language will be available in the dialogs and selection lists
- Template macros - freely definable list of macros, that you can use in your templates. These macros will be substituted by the values listed here, always when you create a new topic (or project) from the template. $TITLE, $YEAR and $TODAY macros are supported internally and you do not have to define them here, unless you want to define some constant values for them.

Appearance - User interface

- Color scheme - the user interface color scheme
- Language - the user interface language
- Syntax highlighter - a syntax highlighting template for use in the topic editor. Selected template contains also the definition of keystrokes (for inserting the text snippets) and the definition of code completion items.
- Use system theme in table of contents - by default the topic of contents editor mimics the look and feel of resulting help contents. This option switching the behaviour and appearance of the editor to a system theme.
- As new tab open the "Welcome page" - by default the new tab is opened as a copy of current tab. This option allows to always open the "Welcome page" as a new tab.
- Open different page types in new tabs - by default all page types are displayed in the same tab, until the user clicks "Open a new tab" button. This option allows to automatically open different page types in different tabs.
- Size of Quick launch items - defines dimensions of buttons in the Quick launch panel on welcome page

Appearance - Fonts

On this tab, you can choose font types and sizes for the individual user interface components (windows, menus, labels, buttons and dialogs, texts and lists, titles and headings of important panels).

External tools - MS Html Help

- Compiler - here you can select your CHM (Microsoft Compiled Html Help) compiler. Precision Helper supports any compiler with the same programming interface as a standard library hha.dll, and / or executable compilaer hhc.exe.
- Maximum context help items stored in the project file - this parameter defines the threshold for the number of contextual help items that are stored directly in the project file (.hhp). For a small number of items it does not make sense to define the external header files (.h, .ali), but on the other hand a large number of items unnecessarily increases the project file size. If you leave this field blank, the external header files will be used always.

External tools - Miscellaneous

On this tab you can choose your favorite applications, which will be used as external tools for editing or viewing topics and files (html editor, web browser and image editor).
The "Show in status bar" option will show / hide the external tool in application status bar.

Externí tools - Miscellaneous 2

- File manager - for exploring the folder of selected project or file. If you enter the path and parameters here, an additional option called "Explore with ..." will be enabled in context menus for projects and files (topics, pictures, etc.). Thus, the folders of selected files can be explored also by your favorite file manager (in addition to exploring with Windows Explorer)
- Path to the pdScript IDE - here you can define the path to the pdScript IDE application, that is a good choice for creating and designing your own application extensions (add-ons) for Precision Helper. The editor can be opened via Code Editor button in the Tools tab. More info about pdScript IDE can be found here: http://www.be-precision.com/products/pdscript/.

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