Prefs Menu

Clicking on the PREFS button reveals the "preferences screen" which allows you to change your preferences easily. Here is a brief description of what they all do.

Timed Backup

This is a very useful function. It may be a bit of a pain if you haven't got a hard drive. This function allows you to selected how often a backup is saved. You can also choose the file name. The default is DH0:TimedBackup.TEMP, the time is set to 5 minutes. When a timed backup is carried out, it is done WITHOUT any requesters. It is best to turn this function off if you have a floppy based system as you may have to wait a when a save is carried out. This is how the timed backup works. Let's say that a timed backup has been saved to your hard drive and then the power fails. You lose all of your work! If you load Huge Base again, the backup file still exists from the last time you used Huge Base so you will be requested if you want to load it or not. When you quit Huge Base, the backup file is deleted so, if you quit Huge Base in any other way than using the QUIT function, a backup file will always exist. However, if other copies of Huge Base are running, you may want to ignore the request to load the backup file.

Mins

This button allows you to set how often a timed backup will take place. If this value is set to zero, this will disable the timed backup, even if there is a timed backup file name.

Default Path

The path name you enter here will be the default path that databases are looked for the first time you call the LOAD, SAVE or SAVE AS functions.

Auto Save

When this preference is set to YES, you will have to enter the number of minutes inbetween each autosave. When the time has elapsed, you will be requested to save your database. At this point, you can reject the request if you wish. Remember that the autosave will not show any requests to save your database if there is no database currently in memory or no changes have taken place since the last save.

Date/Time

This preference is to set how long it takes for the current system date and time to appear in the message box. Type a value of 0 or a blank string to disable the time and date appearance. Note that if there would be no message in the message box, the time and date is displayed. Well, there's no use wasting a perfectly good part of the screen is there? This will not happen though if you have set this preference to a value of zero which means never appear.

Backup

When saving your database, you may overwrite an existing file. If this function is activated, the file which will be overwritten is renamed and given an extension called .BAK.

Descripters

If this preferences is set to YES, descriptor messages will appear in the status box when the mouse cursor is placed over button. This is to help beginners as the message displays what the button WILL do if you click on it so, if you are an experienced user, you can set this preference to NO to disable the descriptor messages.

Add Icon

If you select YES for this preference, an icon will be added to your database file which will end in ".info". You will need to enter the path name and the file name of where the icon is that you want to use. The default setting is S:HugeBaseIcon.info. You can change the icon to whatever image you like as long it doesn't exceed 10K in size.

Secure

If this option if turned off, any database you save will not be secure. This means that any user with Huge Base can load your database. Turning it on will secure your database with a password. To select a password choose PASSWORD from the Huge Base menu, explained above. Remember that even if you have entered a password, it will have no effect if the SECURE mode is set to NO.

Add Extension

If this preference is set to YES, an extension will be added to your database file. The extension is "HB2". This could come in handy if you have different types of files in the same directory as your databases. This way, you can distinguish between databases and other files just by the file name.

Button Light

Make Huge Base look that little bit more like the Workbench (if you must) by setting this preference to YES. This will make each button that is clicked on light up.

Auto Edit

If this preference is set to YES, when a new record is created, the edit cursor will be in the first field. This saves you clicking in the first field if you want to enter data into the new record straight away.

Sound Set

Click on the button next to the "Sound set >" phrase and all of the available soundsets will appear. Click on the soundset of your choice. If you own AMOS you can create your own soundsets. See the READ ME document for more information.

Autoload

If this preference is turned off, Huge Base will load as normal. If you activate this function, you must select a Huge Base database. Next time Huge Base is loaded, this database will load automatically in the same way as it would if you selected it using the file selector.

COLOUR 0", "COLOUR 1", "COLOUR 2" and "COLOUR 3"

These buttons allow you to set the four screen colours. A menu will appear in which you can select the colour of your choice.

Default

This resets ALL preferences back to the default values. In other words, how I want them to be!

Play16

This preference reverts you to a different screen in which you can easily choose optional parameters of the Play16 program.

MODE - None means that Play16 will try to look for a sample format before playing. If a recognised format is not found, RAW mode is used. RAW mode means that all of your RAW mode preferences will be used. To stop Play16 using (or switching) to RAW mode, set this preference to STRICT. This will force Play16 to play only samples that are recognised.

FAST - If this is set to YES, it means that Play16 will not automatically switch to half the sample rate if the sound file's rate exceeds 28kHz.

HIFI - Turns HIFI mode either on of off.

VOLUME - Set various volume levels to use with Play16.

OUTPUT - Choose which output device you want to use when a sample is played.

FILTER - Choosing ON will enable the filter for playback, choosing OFF will disable the filter for playback. Selecting auto will allow Play16 to decide whether the filter is on or off, this depends on the sample's quality.

LOOPS - Select how many loops you want the sample to carry out. One loop means play the sample once.

I'm not an expert at sample or Play16 for that matter. The documentation for Play16 can be located in the C: directory of the same disk that Huge Base is on. To use Play16 separate from Huge Base or you want to find out more then you should read the document.

Messages

This preference allows you to change almost any message that is used in Huge Base. Use the NEXT PAGE and PREV PAGE to view different messages. Select a message if you want change it. Click on EXIT to revert back to the preferences screen. I'm warning you now, there are loads of messages!

Save

This will save the preferences you have set above into a file called HugeBaseV2.1.CONFIG. It will be stored in the S directory of your system disk. Next time you load Huge Base, the preferences will be set to those saved in the file when it was written. Remember that an error will be generated if your disk with the S: directory on is write protected.

Save As

This is the same as SAVE except you can save the current preferences under a different file name. You can save as many preference files as you want with this function.

Load

With this function you can load a preference file that was saved with Huge Base V2.1. Errors will be generated if the file is not a proper preference file.

Reload

This is exactly the same as LOAD except the file that will be loaded is the default name, S:HugeBaseV2.1.CONFIG.

Exit

This button reverts you back to the Huge Base screen and out of the preference screen.

Special Preferences

Remember about the three preferences ADD ICON, SECURE and ADD EXTENSION, these are saved inside of the database file so they may get changed when you load a database, regardless of your saved preferences. If either of these three preferences get changed, Huge Base will regard these as FILE changes.

Preference Files

It is perfectly okay to delete the preferences file as Huge Base will use the default settings. The default settings are always used if the preferences file fails to load.

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