Chapter 12

Preferences

MrEd supports a number of preferences for global configuration. The MrEd preferences are stored in the common file reported by find-system-path for 'pref-file (see Pathnames, section 11.3.2 in PLT MzScheme: Language Manual), and preference values can be retrieved and changed through get-preference and set-preference as defined by MzLib's file library (see file.ss, chapter 18 in PLT MzLib: Libraries Manual). However, MrEd reads most preferences once at startup (all except the '|MrEd:playcmd| preference).

The following are the preference names used by MrEd. (The preference names are case-sensitive, hence the quoting vertical bars around each symbol.)

• '|MrEd:default-font-size| preference -- sets the default font size the basic style in a style list, and thus the default font size for an editor.

• '|MrEd:controlFontSize| preference -- sets the font size for control and menu labels (Windows, X); the font is the 'system font, which can be configured as described in Font Preferences.

• '|MrEd:defaultMenuPrefix| preference -- sets the prefix used by default for menu item shortcuts under X, one of 'ctl, 'meta, or 'alt. The default is 'ctl. When this preference is set to 'meta or 'alt, underlined mnemonics (introduced by ``&'' in menu labels) are suppressed.

• '|MrEd:altUpSelectsMenu| preference -- a true value makes pressing and releasing the Alt key select the first menu in the menu bar under X.

• '|MrEd:emacsUndo| preference -- a true value makes undo in editors work as in Emacs (i.e., undo operations are themselves kept in the undo stack).

• '|MrEd:hiliteColor| preference -- a string to sets the color for highlighting text, menus, and other GUI elements under X; the preference string should contain six hexadecimal digits, two for each component of the color. For example, set '|MrEd:hiliteColor| preference to "0000A0" and set '|MrEd:hiliteMenuBorder| preference to #t for a Bluecurve-like look.

• '|MrEd:hiliteMenuBorder| preference -- a true value causes a menu selection to be highlighted with a border (in addition to a color) under X.

• '|MrEd:wheelStep| preference -- sets the default mouse-wheel step size of editor-canvas% objects.

• '|MrEd:outlineInactiveSelection| preference -- a true value causes selections in text editors to be shown with an outline of the selected region when the editor does no have the keyboard focus.

• '|MrEd:playcmd| preference -- used to format a sound-playing command; see play-sound for details.

• '|MrEd:forceFocus| preference -- a true value enables extra effort in MrEd to move the focus to a top-level window that is shown or raised.

• '|MrEd:doubleClickTime| preference -- overrides the platform-specific default interval (in milliseconds) for double-click events.

• '|MrEd:gamma| preference -- sets the gamma value used in gamma-correcting PNG files.

• '|MrEd:selectionAsClipboard| preference -- under X, a true value causes the-clipboard to be an alias to the-x-selection-clipboard, which means that cut and paste operations use the X selection instead of the X clipboard. See also clipboard<%>.

In addition, preference names built from font face names can provide or override default entries for the font-name-directory<%>; see Font Preferences for information.