Pimlical Android Help

Operation of Preference Dialogs

There are a huge number of preferences in Pimlical, in fact so many that it is difficult to even present them in a manner that will make findind a desired preference setting obvious. The preferences have a KeyName which usually describes the function of the preference (such as HideNoteIcon), and also a description. There is a useful Find function (see below) which helps locate preferences associated with some operation or function.

When first invoked, there are a set of buttons to go to a particular section to help isolate the preferences - but in some cases a preference has a scope beyong that section, so always read the description carefully.

Most dialogs that appear when a preference item is tapped are self-explanatory, such as changing a preference from True to False. After making the change, click on the OK button and exit out of preferences to see the preference take effect. A very few preferences may require exiting out of Pimlical and relaunching it. You can exit out of Pimlical completely with a long press on the back button in any of the main views, or by using menu | Exit.

When a preference item is displayed, you can long press an item to popup a dialog with the entire text of the preference item (some preference item descriptions are truncated to fit the list display).

The Preference dialog used to set the order and selection of views or popup command list (StringsList type preference) is used to both simultaneously select items and also change the order. To change the order of items, tap the Up/Down buttons at which point all selections are cleared. You can then select the one item you want to move, and then tap the Up/Down buttons again to move it up or down. When you have finished moving items, tap the OK button at which point all items are then selected. You can then unselect those items that you do not want to appear in the preference.

Some preference items have a Duration value - such as Alarm settings like AlarmSoundRepeatInterval. You can enter duration values  as day/hour/minute/second values with the letter identifying the time interval after it. For example: 3d for three days, 2d4h for two days, four hours, 4h33m5s for four hours, thirty-three minutes and five seconds, 45s for just 45 seconds. The letters used for Hours, Minutes & Seconds are themselves preference items (LetterForXXXX, where XXXX is Week/Day/Hour/Minute/Second). The letters that are used are no longer case-sensitive (V-4.2.08 and later).

Normally, from a preference setting in Pimlical, a dialog is displayed where you can tap buttons to set the desired interval. Normally, seconds are not displayed, but if there is some compelling reason to have to specify seconds, you can go into menu | Preferences and set the DebugMode preference to True temporarily as in debugmode, seconds are also displayed in that dialog.

When returning to the Preference Dialog, Pimlical will remember the last section that you had selected and will highlight that in red. If you then tap on that button, Pimlical will scroll the display, if necessary, so that the last selected item is always visible on the screen.

Some items in the preference file may have a name associated with the desktop version of Pimlical rather than the Android version, but in most cases, the name will be similar enough to suggest the function. For example, a double-click of the mouse on the desktop is equivalent to a long press in Android.

Restore Button

There may be occasions where you need to restore or reset your preferences. For example, after fiddling around, you may have inadvertently changed some preference setting in such a way that it causes a problem that you can't resolve. In that case, it may be best to just restore your preferences from a previously-saved version, as Pimlical constantly backs up your preferences and maintains multiple copies of it.

The Restore button displays a list of all your most recent backup copies, as well as a Reset button. The file list includes the name of the SystemPreferences file with the extension associated with that backup and the date/time that backup was saved along with the file size. It then lists the name of the Default User Preference file and extension. If the date of that backup differs from the System Preferences, then the date of that User Preference file is also displayed (normally it would be the same). This is then followed by the filesize of the Default backup file. If the file does not exist, then instead of the filesize in parentheses, the legend N/A (Not Available) is displayed instead. Whenever you backup or restore the user preferences, Pimlical will backup and restore the Default User Preferences and every other custom preference file as well (i.e. custom preference files attached to filters).

The Reset button has checkboxes which will restore the 'factory default' settings for your system and default user preferences, including the refresh of all your system-type files, such as the Icon Archive, the WorldTimezones.txt file, and all the special programmed display templates. This function will also reset all your filters and templates to the initial install defaults. Note that you can choose to use either the default Worldtimezones.txt file that has most of the common timezones, or the Worldtimezones._all.txt file which lists virtually all timezones in use throughout the world. Regardless of which checkboxes are checked (even if none of them are checked), Pimlical will always restore all the built-in system templates used to control the display.

Finding Preference items

There is a useful Find button in the main preference dialog that displays all the preference sections. You can enter any preference name or partial text string, and Pimlical will find ALL preferences that match that text string. There is also a checkbox which determines whether or not Pimlical will also search the description of that preference. The last used Find is saved in the default preference file and always restored for subsequent use.