Preferences

The Preferences dialog is the main interface for configuring Directory Opus. Almost all the options that control how Opus looks and behaves can be found in here. And there's no denying there are a lot of options. Once you start to drill through the various categories and pages the number of options swiftly becomes daunting. Luckily there's a nifty feature that can make it easier to find the option you're looking for.

The Filter field at the bottom-left of the dialog can be used to search Preferences for those pages and options that match one or more supplied keywords. In the above screen shot we have used the filter to search for items relating to color settings. To use the filter, click in the field (or press F3) and type one or more keywords, separated by spaces, and then press enter to activate the filter. All pages that don't match are filtered out, and any matching terms on the remaining pages are highlighted.

In the above screen shot, the entry for the Colors and Fonts page is highlighted because the whole page matches the filter. If the whole page doesn't match, but individual controls on a page do, then those controls will be highlighted:

The Folder Tree / Appearance page didn't match the filter itself, but one control on the page did.

To clear the filter and display all pages, click the little X button at the right of the field or activate the field and press the Escape key.

At the very top of the Preferences dialog is the File menu; this contains a number of useful commands:

• Restore Page Settings: Restores all the settings on the current page to their values when Preferences was first opened. This even works if you have clicked the Apply button to apply your changes - you can undo any changes at any time as long as you don't close the Preferences dialog.
• Reset Page To Defaults: Resets all the settings on the current page to their default values.
• Restore All Settings: Restores all the settings on all pages to their original values (from when Preferences was first opened).
• Reset All To Defaults: Resets all the settings on all pages to their default values.
• Change Configuration Mode: Lets you change between the two different configuration modes that Opus supports.
  • Private configuration: Each user of the computer will have their own Opus configuration, completely separate from every other user's.
  • Shared configuration: There is only one global Opus configuration, and all computer users share it (so changes one user makes to the configuration affects all other users).

   

  You can change modes at any time by selecting this command - when Opus restarts it will be operating in the other mode.

• Backup & Restore: Access the Preferences backup and restore system.