When you left click on a Monotone Browser window's Preferences tool-bar button you will be presented with a dialog window like the one shown below.
This dialog window allows you to change the behaviour of Monotone Browser. The preference settings are grouped into three tabbed panes as follows:
General Tab
Startup Defaults Panel
Field |
Description |
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Database to open |
This entry field contains the default Monotone database that is to be opened automatically when Monotone Browser starts. Left click on the Browse button to display an Open Database dialog window that will help you select a database. |
Takes precedence |
If this is ticked and Monotone Browser is launched from within a Monotone workspace then the database details for that workspace take precedence over the default database. Otherwise the workspace is completely ignored. |
Auto select branch and revision |
If this is ticked and Monotone Browser is launched from within a Monotone workspace then the workspace's branch and revision are selected and displayed by default in Monotone Browser. Otherwise no branch and revision are selected. |
Revision Selection Panel
Field |
Description |
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Auto select head revision |
If this is ticked then whenever a branch is selected, its head revision is automatically selected as well. Otherwise the revision has to be selected manually.
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ComboBox And Auto-Completion Settings Panel
Field |
Description |
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Tagged lists |
Controls the displaying of tagged revisions within a Revision auto-completion entry's completion list. The Limit to entry field stipulates how many items will be displayed in a completion list (if this is set to 0 then the list is unlimited). Sort chronologically and Sort by name determine whether the items are sorted by date or by their name respectively. |
Id lists |
Controls the displaying of revision ids within a Revision auto-completion entry's completion list. The remaining fields have the same purpose as those discussed under Tagged lists, the only difference being that the sort by name option is called Sort by id rather than Sort by name. |
History size |
Determines how much history is retained for ordinary combobox entry's fields via their pull down lists. This history is saved to disk so that it is available the next time you run Monotone Browser. This does not apply to Branch, Revision and Directory auto-completion entry fields as they are used to select items out of specific lists retrieved from the database. |
Show tooltips |
If this is ticked then each time an invalid character is entered into a Branch or Revision auto-completion entry field a completion tooltip is displayed just below it that shows the same explanatory text that is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the window. Otherwise no completion style tooltips are displayed. |
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Completion lists are displayed with the most recent items uppermost. |
Browser Display Options Panel
Field |
Description |
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Show suspended revisions |
If this is ticked then the branches of suspended revisions are included in Branch combobox entry pull down lists. Otherwise only active branches are listed.
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Detailed file listings |
If this is ticked then the Last Update and Author columns are shown in Revision Browser panels. Otherwise only the file's icon and name are shown. Not displaying these two columns speeds up the displaying of a directory's contents at the expense of less information. |
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Folders come first |
If this is ticked then folders are displayed before any files in directory listings. Otherwise both folders and files are displayed in strict alphabetical order. |
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Show line numbers |
If this is ticked then line numbers are shown by default when viewing the contents of files. Otherwise no line numbers are shown by default. |
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Binary threshold |
This threshold is used to decide whether a file's contents are textual or binary in nature. When Monotone Browser is determining the amount of non-printable characters in a file it breaks the data down into 10KB chunks and calculates the percentage of non-printable characters in that chunk. As soon as a chunk's percentage of non-printable characters is greater than this threshold the file is considered to be binary and not textual. This process is designed for efficiency as sometimes many hundreds of files need to be scanned per second. |
List Options Panel
Field |
Description |
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Search as regular expression |
If this is ticked then whenever a table is searched, by entering Ctrl+F, the search term entered into the data entry field is treated as a regular expression. Otherwise the search term is treated as plain text. |
External File Comparison Application Panel
Field |
Description |
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Application |
This entry field contains the name of the program that is to be used when comparing two files with the external helper application. Although Monotone Browser normally uses Monotone to compare files internally, there are occasions when Monotone is unable to do this (due to files being renamed or moved) or when the user feels that comparisons are better viewed in a tool dedicated to that purpose. Under these circumstances the application specified here is use. {file1} and {file2} are special tokens that are replaced with the corresponding file names.
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Appearance Tab
Fonts Panel
Field |
Description |
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File content/report font |
This font button specifies the font to use for displaying the contents of text files. When you left click on the button you are presented with a standard Pick A Font dialog window.
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Toolbar Settings Panel
Field |
Description |
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Hide text |
If this is ticked then the text just below the tool-bar buttons on a Monotone Browser window will not be displayed. Otherwise the explanatory text will be displayed. |
Fixed |
If this is ticked then the tool-bar on a Monotone Browser window will be fixed in position and will not be movable. Otherwise the tool-bar can be moved or made to float outside of any window. |
File/Revision Comparison Panel
Field |
Description |
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Coloured comparison listings |
If this is ticked then revision and file comparisons are formatted using colour in order to make the differences stand out more clearly. Otherwise the comparison output is displayed as plain text in its original “unified diff” patch(1) format. |
Colours Panel
Field |
Description |
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Annotation prefix 1 down to Annotation text 2 |
Determines the colours used when displaying text in an Annotated Listing window. As you will have observed, each block of labelled text is displayed in alternating colours in order to differentiate it from its neighbours above and below. In addition, the label, or prefix, on the left hand side of each text block is also displayed in its own colour so as to not only differentiate it from its neighbours but also from its accompanying text on the right. Therefore the colours for this window are broken down into four distinct groups, each having a foreground and background colour. When you left click on a colour button you are presented with a standard Pick A Colour dialog window. |
Revision 1 and Revision 2 |
Determines the colours used when displaying comparisons between revisions and files. As you will have observed, changes from each revision are displayed in different colours so as to highlight the differences. The foreground and background colours are used for showing the actual differences, whereas the highlight colours are used when displaying file context information in the dark grey status lines. When you left click on a colour button you are presented with a standard Pick A Colour dialog window. |
MIME Types Tab
MIME Types Panel
This panel basically contains a list of MIME types known to Monotone Browser, their associated file name patterns and a helper application that can handle that MIME type. Below this list is an entry field where one can enter new MIME types and then left click on the + button just to the right of this entry field to add it to the list above. Likewise, when you left click on the - then the currently selected MIME type is removed from the list.
When Monotone Browser is first run, it initialises the MIME types list from the system's MIME type database, usually /usr/share/mime/globs. However, there is always a chance that you may need to add some extra MIME types yourself.
File Name Patterns Panel
This panel contains a list of file name patterns associated with the currently selected MIME type in the MIME Types panel. To the right of this list is an entry field where one can enter new file name patterns and then left click on the + button just to the right of this entry field to add it to the list . Likewise, when you left click on the - then the currently selected file name pattern is removed from the list.
File Actions Panel
This panel contains some settings for the currently selected MIME type in the MIME Types panel.
Field |
Description |
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Display internally |
If this is ticked then files of that MIME type will be displayed in Monotone Browser's file viewer when selected. Otherwise just the file's MIME type is displayed. If Monotone Browser is not able to make sense of that particular MIME type then it will resort to displaying a hex dump of a file's contents instead. |
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Syntax highlight |
If this is ticked then files of that MIME type will be syntax highlighted, if at all possible, when displayed in Monotone Browser's file viewer. Otherwise no syntax highlighting will take place and the text is just displayed in plain black. |
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Helper application |
This entry field contains the name of the program that is to be used to display a file of this type when the user left clicks on a Monotone Browser window's Load Into Viewer button. {file} and {line} are special tokens that are replaced with the corresponding file name and the number of the line that is currently visible half way down the file viewer.
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When one left clicks on the Defaults button right at the bottom of the Preferences dialog window then all of the settings on the currently displayed tab are reset to their default values.