Preferences window

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Preferences window

The prefs_16Preferences window allows you to change the behaviour of the software according to your preferences. Changes apply to all plans edited by the current user henceforth, not just the current plan. To display this window select Edit>prefs_16Preferences.

The Window has 8 tabs:

Edition

General

Auto assign

Names

Titles

Suffixes

Terms

Backups

Warnings

Edition

There are 3 different PerfectTablePlan products (editions). Each edition is aimed at a different type of user. When you enter your licence key in the Licence window this will set PerfectTablePlan to the edition you have purchased. But, if you are using the trial version of PerfectTablePlan, you can choose any of the 3 editions to try. You can also try a different edition to the one you have purchased (for example you can try the Advanced edition, even if you have only purchased the Home edition) but your licence key will be invalid until you revert to the correct edition.

Note You may lose data if you change the edition. For example, if you change from Advanced edition to Home edition any custom fields will be deleted. You may therefore wish to save your plan before changing edition.

Click Compare editions to find out more about the different editions of PerfectTablePlan.

General

Check show tool tips to display helpful tool tips when you hover the mouse over controls and over tables and seats in the floor_plan_16Floor Plan pane and table_circular_16Table Plan pane.

Check large toolbar icons to display tool bar icons as 32x32 pixels, otherwise they will be displayed 24x24 pixels.

Check tool bar text to show text under each tool bar icon.

Check hide open/recent/save tool bar icons to hide the tool bar buttons for basic actions. Even if this box is unchecked the buttons will only be shown in some contexts, depending on the Task bar settings.

Check export image as large as possible to make floor_plan_16Floor Plan or table_circular_16Table Plan images created by exporting as large as possible (each seat up to 300 pixels across, depending on the amount of memory available). If this box is unchecked images will be exported/copied as standard size (each seat up to 100 pixels across, depending on the amount of memory available). The maximum size of image exported is 4096x4096 pixels, regardless of whether this box is checked. Export to PDF format if you want higher resolution.

Check use native file open/save windows to use the native Windows file Open and Save windows. We only recommend unchecking this if you have problems with the native file open/save windows.

Check allow file locking to lock open plan files so that only a single user can write to them (any number can read). This is useful when you have multiple users accessing shared plans across a network.

Set When read-only plan updated according to what you want to happen when you have opened a plan as read-only and it is updated by another application (e.g. PerfectTablePlan running on another computer).

Do nothing to ignore updates.

Prompt to reload plan if you want to be prompted whether to reload each time the plan is updated.

Reload plan without prompting if you want to automatically display any changes to the plan you are reading. You will still be prompted if you have modified the plan since you opened it. This option is very useful if you are reading a plan file from another computer to display seating changes in real time on a VDU chart.

The At start-up drop-down list allows you to choose how to open plan files at start-up. If you wish to open the most recently accessed plan each time you start PerfectTablePlan, select Open last plan. If you wish to show the Most Recently Accessed window each time you start PerfectTablePlan, select Open 'Most recent' window. If you wish to start with a new empty plan, select Don't open anything.

Set Default units according to whether you want newly created plans to default to Metres or Feet.

Set User interface style according to how you want the user interface to appear.

Set Export/copy image margin to the % margin you want around floor_plan_16Floor Plan or table_circular_16Table Plan images created by exporting or copying to the clipboard.

Select Floor/Table Plan pane mouse wheel behaviour according to whether you want the mouse wheel to zoom in, zoom out or scroll when you move the mouse wheel backwards in the floor_plan_16Floor Plan pane and table_circular_16Table Plan pane . Hold down the Ctrl key while moving the mouse wheel to get the alternate (zoom->scroll, scroll->zoom) behaviour.

Note Hold down the Alt key to scroll horizontally instead of vertically.

Select Allow seat assignment with RSVP according to which RSVP statuses you wish to allow guests to be assigned with. Changing this the selection can cause guests to be unassigned from their seats if their RSVP status is incompatible with the new setting.

Select Automatically check for software updates depending on how frequently you wish to check online for updates to PerfectTablePlan.

Set Store these preferences in according to how you wish to store your preferences. Saving to a .ini file is useful if you want to run PerfectTablePlan from a portable device, such as a USB drive.

Auto assign

Select in any order if you want the auto seating to assign to tables in any order. This is recommended if according to guest proximity is checked, to get the best (highest scoring) seating. Select in the order shown in the schematic pane to assign guests to tables in the order in which the tables are displayed in the schematic_16Schematic pane (top to bottom).

Note If you are assigning guests to tables in the order shown in the schematic pane, you should unassign guests and remove VIP status from tables later in theschematic_16Schematic pane order to get it work correctly.

Select according to guest proximity if you want to the auto seating to assign guests according to the proximities set in the heart_16Proximity pane. Select randomly to assign guests to seats completely randomly (this may be useful for some types of events).

Check animate in Floor Plan if you want to see the auto seat assignment animated. Note that this slows down the auto seat assignment a little.

Select decided by PerfectTablePlan to let PerfectTablePlan choose when to stop the automatic assignment. PerfectTablePlan will try to calculate a good seating arrangement with taking too much time.

Select seconds if you wish the automatic assignment to stop after the specified number of seconds. We recommend at least 30 seconds. If you have a lot of guests or a very slow PC you may have to increase this time considerably.

Select generations without improvement if you wish the automatic assignment to stop after a specified number of generations without improving the score. We recommend you allow at least 50 generations without improvement. If you set this number very high and have a lot of guests or a very slow PC the automatic assignment may run for a long time.

Select whichever of the above 2 happens first to stop when either of the above two criteria is met, e.g. the automatic assignment has run for x seconds or y generations without an improvement.

Note You can stop the automatic assignment at any time by pressing the Stop button or the Esc key. This will keep the best assignment so far.

See automatic assignment for a discussion of automatic assignment times.

Check alternate males and females if you want the automatic assignment to try to alternate males and females around each table (e.g. M-F-M-F-M-F...).

Select from On narrow tables prefer near to/next to guests seated depending on whether you prefer to seat guests opposite or left/right of each other on narrow (e.g. banquet and E-shaped) tables. Seats are considered opposite if they are less than 2 metres (approx 6 feet) apart and there are the same number of seats on each side.

Select Prefer next to guests seated depending on whether you want 'next to' proximity couples with the female to the left or right of the male. This also affects the order in which groups of guests are placed on tables by drag and drop.

Names

Check automatically capitalise new guest names to automatically capitalise guests titles, first names, last names and suffixes as they are typed (e.g. convert mr john smith phd automatically to Mr John Smith Phd). This only works when adding new guests through Insert>unknown_adult_16Single Guest..., Insert>couple_16Guest Couple... etc, not for editing existing guests.

Set New table name format according to how you would like new tables to be named. See below for examples. You can rename the tables at any point using the Table Properties window.

Example table name format

Example table names

Table {next_table_num}

“Table 1”, “Table 2”, “Table 3”

{next_table_num}

“1”, “2” , “3”

{next_table_letter}

"A", "B", "C"

table

“table” , “table”

Use New seat row name format to set the default name for rows of seats. Similar to above, but using {next_row_num} or {next_row_letter} to substitute in the number or letter of the next row.

Use Anonymous guest name format to set the name format for anonymous guests.

Use Default display name format to change the default display name for new guests. The guest title, first name, first name initials, last name, last name initials and suffix are substituted into {title}, {first}, {f}, {last}, {l} and {suffix}, respectively.

For example:

Default display name format

Default display name for Mr John Smith Phd

{title} {first} {last} {suffix}

Mr John Smith Phd

{last}, {title} {first}

Smith, Mr John

{last}, {title} {f}

Smith, Mr J.

You can use the HTML tags to control how the Display name field appears in the floor_plan_16Floor Plan, table_circular_16Table Plan, tablechart_16Table chart and guestchart_16Guest chart panes.

If you change the Default display name format you will be given the option to update display names for existing guests.

Use Display group members as to set how group member names are displayed in the follow situations:

listing by group in the tablechart_16Table chart or guestchart_16Guest chart panes

substituting into {group_members} in the stationery_16Stationery pane

exporting members (formal) in the export_16Export Data window

Particules is a comma separated list of last name prefixes (e.g. the 'da' in 'Leonardo da Vinci' is a particule).

particules are matched regardless of case (e.g. 'da' matches 'da', 'Da' and 'DA')

particules can be combined (e.g. 'van de' will be recognized as a particule if 'van' and 'de' are listed)

particules are used to split names into first name and last name when importing (e.g. to split 'Leonardo da Vinci' into first name = 'Leonardo' and last name='da Vinci').

particules are ignored when sorting by last name or group name if ignore particules when sorting is checked (e.g. 'da Vinci' is sorted as 'V' instead of 'd')

Titles

Titles that you add here will be available in the guest Title field for all plans. They will also be used when importing full names to determine which parts of the name are titles. Titles vary widely between different counties and types of event. Add titles appropriate to your usage.

Note This is intended for titles that come before the name (e.g. Dr, Herr, Colonel etc). Titles that come after the name (e.g. PhD, MBE) should be added as Suffixes.

You can also specify a default gender, age and VIP status. This is used when inserting new guests. It is also used when importing to set guest gender, age and VIP status (if not supplied) from their title.

Click add_16Add to add a new title.

Click delete_16Delete to delete the selected title(s).

Click up_arrow_16Up to move the selected title(s) up one row.

Click down_arrow_16Down to move the selected title(s) down one row.

Click sort_16Sort to sort the titles alphabetically.

Click Clear to delete all of the titles in the list.

Click Import from plan to import titles from the current plan into the preferences.

Click Add text list... to add a list of titles in text form.

Select from Add pre-defined... to add lists of pre-defined titles/ranks.

Set Sort titles in 'Guests' and 'Groups' panes depending on whether you want titles to be sorted alphabetically or according to the order in this tab (any titles not listed will be sorted alphabetically, after those listed).

Set Default couple to the titles you wish to use as the default when adding a couple or family.

Suffixes

Suffixes that you add here will be available in the guest Suffix field for all plans. They will also be used when importing full names to determine which parts of the name are suffixes. Suffixes vary widely between different counties and types of event. Add suffixes appropriate to your usage.

Click add_16Add to add a new suffix.

Click delete_16Delete to delete the selected suffix(es).

Click up_arrow_16Up to move the selected suffix(es) up one row.

Click down_arrow_16Down to move the selected suffix(es) down one row.

Click sort_16Sort to sort the suffixes alphabetically.

Click Clear to delete all of the suffixes in the list.

Click Import from plan to import suffixes from the current plan into the preferences.

Click Add text list... to add a list of suffixes in text form.

Set Sort suffixes in 'Guests' and 'Groups' panes depending on whether you want titles to be sorted alphabetically or according to the order in this tab (any suffixes not listed will be sorted alphabetically, after those listed).

Terms

You can change words that appear in the table_circular_16Table Plan pane, guestchart_16Guest Chart pane and stats_16Report pane here. For example, you might want to use the German "Tisch" instead of the English "Table".

To change which terms are shown, select from the Show terms for drop-down list. To change a term just click on the appropriate term in the Change to column and edit it. To restore all the terms to the default settings click the Reset defaults button.

Note These changes only affect words inside panes. The user interface is currently only available in English.

Backups

Check when saved to create a backup file each time you save a plan.

Check on auto assign to create a backup file each time you run an auto assignment.

Check on export to create a backup file each time you export.

Check on print to create a backup file each time you print.

Check automatically every to create a backup file at the specified time interval. The plan will only be backed-up if it has been changed during this time.

Check at startup check for unsaved changes in backup files if you wish to check whether backup files may contain unsaved changes at startup.

Warnings

You can turn various warnings on and off here.

Buttons

Click OK to accept the changes. Click Cancel to discard the changes. Changes to this window affect all plans.