Preferences: General
General preference settings for the Publish or Perish software
This dialog box appears when you choose the Tools > Preferences command from the main menu. It allows you to edit a number of settings that affect Publish or Perish as a whole. This dialog box contains the following fields and options.
Software update checks
This box contains options relating to the periodic checks that the Publish or Perish software performs to inform you about available updates to the software. If an update is available, you will be prompted to download and install it.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Automatically check for software updates |
Check this box to let Publish or Perish periodically check for software updates. If a software update is available, you will be notified and asked if you want to download and install the update. |
| Check for updates every <n> days |
Enter the number of days between the automatic update checks. This option has no effect if Automatically check for software updates is cleared. |
| Check now | Click this button to perform an immediate check for software updates. This is equivalent to choosing the Tools > Check for Updates command from the main menu. |
On-disk backup copies
This box contains options relating to the on-disk backup copies that Publish or Perish makes of your queries and their results. These copies are meant as an insurance against catastrophic failures of the system or in the Publish or Perish software (for example, a power outage just when Publish or Perish is saving its query results). The copies are not directly related to the Trash folder; that folder is part of the normal folder tree.
Each time the Publish or Perish software terminates normally, a backup copy of the previous query set is saved in the on-disk trash can, along with any query results belonging to queries that have been deleted from the folder tree.
Periodically, garbage collection is performed to delete any previously stored copies and results that are older than a preset maximum number of days are deleted to avoid an unbounded growth of the on-disk trash can. At the same time, the HTTP cache is cleared of entries that are older than the maximum cache age.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Keep backup copies for <n> days |
Enter the number of days to keep on-disk backup copies of deleted queries and results. Because this is primarily a safety feature, you should choose a maximum age that is neither too short (in case you only find out about a problem after a few tries) nor too long (to avoid wasting disk space on unnecessary files). The default of 90 days is probably a reasonable compromise unless you use Publish or Perish frequently (say, more than once a week); in that case, a shorter period such as 30 days is probably sufficient. |
| Minimum number of backup copies |
Enter the minimum number of backup copies to keep even if they are older than the maximum age set in the Keep backup copies for <n> days option. This ensures that a minimum number of backup copies will always be available, even if you use the Publish or Perish software only sporadically. |
| Maximum number of backup copies |
Enter the maximum number of backup copies to keep even if they are younger than the maximum age set in the Keep backup copies for <n> days option. This ensures that your disk will not become cluttered with unnecessary files if you use the Publish or Perish software frequently. |
| Collect garbage every <n> days |
Enter the number of days between the automatic garbage collections. This ensures that old data and cache files are not kept indefinitely and that orphaned files are pruned. This is equivalent to the Tools > Clear Garbage command. |
Appearance
This box contains options that affect the Publish or Perish main window.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Show Grid lines* | Check this box to make Publish or Perish show grid lines in the queries list and the results list; clear it to display no lines. |
| Enable UI Theme* |
Check this box to use the applicable Windows UI theme in the folder tree, queries list, and results list; clear it to display all trees and lists with standard (non-themed) attributes. The Windows UI theme varies between Windows versions (XP, 7, 8, 10); roughly speaking, when the UI theme is enabled, the tree and lists in Publish or Perish use the same embellishments as Windows Explorer does. Without the UI theme, the tree and lists take on their standard (plain) form. |
*Note: Enabling or disabling any of these options may cause visual artifacts in the Publish or Perish main window. For best results, exit, then restart Publish or Perish once you have selected the desired combination of appearance options.
Additional note: These options may not work, or be less effective, on Wine-based platforms such as Wine/Linux or Wine/OS X
Copyright © 2018 David Adams. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Wed 7 Feb 2018 21:05
Web master of Harzing.com and developer of the Publish or Perish software, among other things. He holds BSc and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering, a PhD in Operations Research, and likes to watch academic life from a safe distance.
