→ Tools" menu.The Preferences Editor allows you to alter configuration settings that
affect the appearance and behavior of the Process Dashboard. You can open
the Preferences Editor by selecting "Preferences" from the
" → Tools" menu.
Common preferences are displayed in several categories.
Window Title: this field allows you to change the title that appears on the main Process Dashboard toolbar. If you regularly work with more than one Process Dashboard dataset, changing the title of each window can make it easier to tell the datasets apart.
Include in Title: in the personal dashboard, these elements give the option to display dynamic timing metrics in the main window title bar.
Always On Top: If you are running Java 1.6 or higher, this setting will appear, allowing you to request that the Process Dashboard toolbar remain on top of other windows.
System Tray: If you are running Java 1.6 or higher, the dashboard can display an icon in the system tray. A checkbox here allows you to enable or disable this feature. If this feature is enabled, you can also choose how the Process Dashboard should behave when you minimize the main window. If you put a check in the "Minimize to system tray" checkbox, minimizing the dashboard will remove the entry from your application task bar, leaving only the system tray icon. In this mode, double-clicking on the system tray icon will bring the window back.
Translation Support: If your operating system is configured to use a language other than English, and if you (or others) have entered translations for that language, then the Process Dashboard may be able to display some messages in your language. Here, you can configure the extent to which messages will be translated:
Cross-platform theme: On the Windows operating system, the dashboard user interface will use an operating-sytem-native theme by default. If you prefer, you can enable a cross-platform visual theme instead by checking this box.
Use large fonts: On some systems, it is possible to increase the size of the fonts used in the application. Checking this box will increase the sizes of many fonts, which can make the user interface easier to read on high-resolution displays. (Unfortunately, limitations in the Java platform prevent some font sizes from changing.)
Click on script menu: When you click on the script button, it will normally open the script menu. If you would prefer for it to open the default script/form for the current task instead, you can check this box.
Auto-select next task: When you mark a task complete using the completion checkbox, the dashboard will normally select the next task for you. To disable this behavior, uncheck this box.
Hide completed tasks: To reduce clutter in the active task selector, the dashboard moves completed projects and tasks to an "Older Completed Items" submenu. This field allows you to control how old a task will be before it gets moved to the submenu. The default is two weeks, so you can still easily find and revisit tasks you've been working on recently. To move all completed tasks to the submenu, change this setting to 0. To disable this feature entirely, change the value to a very large number like 9999.
The Process Dashboard can read process templates, scripts, tools, extensions, and other modules from various locations. By default, it will find any modules that are placed in the directory where you installed the dashboard. If you and your team members want to use a shared network area for Process Dashboard scripts and templates, you can configure that area on this panel. Just ensure that the check box is enabled, and click the "Add" button to add a new template location.
You may have entries in this list that are related to team projects you have joined in the past. If some of the entries are out of date or describe nonexistent network directories, you can remove them from the list.
If your team is not actively using this feature and your organization's network is slow, you may wish to disable this feature entirely. Just uncheck the box on this panel. However, if you receive an error message the next time the dashboard starts, it may be necessary to reenable this feature.
The dashboard automatically keeps internal backups of data. On this panel, you can configure how many days worth of backup data should be kept. These internal backups are incremental, so they do not take up much space. As a result, the default value (six weeks) is fairly helpful.
In addition, you can ask the dashboard to make redundant external backups to one or more locations. Just add entries to the table on this preferences panel.
For more information about internal and external backups, see the data backup help topic.
Recommend read-only: Sometimes a Team Dashboard is shared by many people who routinely open it. Most of the time, these people may just need to view rolled up team reports. However, the act of opening the dashboard causes the data to be locked; then, another individual who really needs to make changes is told that the data is in use by someone else. To help with this problem, you can check this box for heavily shared team dashboards. Then, each time an individual opens this dashboard, they will see a prompt asking them if they need read access or if they just need to view reports. This allows the "report-only" individuals to open the dashboard without locking it, leaving the lock available to others who need to make changes.
Check for updated software: The dashboard can perform a monthly check to see if a new version of the software is available. If you do not want it to look for updates, remove the checkmark from this box.
Slow network: If your organization has an unusually slow network, or if you connect to team resources over a VPN, you can check this box. The dashboard will optimize some internal operations differently in an attempt to improve performance.
Numeric IP: The Process Dashboard displays some resources in your web browser. Most of the time, these pages are on the same computer where the dashboard is running. But in a small number of special cases, the dashboard is running on one computer and it displays a URL that you can use from another computer. The most common scenario for this is the Team Project Tools page in the Team Dashboard; it displays URLs that you can share with other people so they can join the project or view the plan summary. By default, it will use the name of the hosting computer to build these "shareable" URLs. But if your organization's network is not configured to register these names in DNS, other individuals may find that the URLs don't work. In that case, you can put a check mark in this box, and the dashboard will use the IP address of the hosting computer (instead of its name) to build the shareable URLs.
The categories listed above provide access to the most commonly used dashboard settings. However, the dashboard has an extensive collection of other, infrequently used settings. If you need to change one of those other settings, you can add entries to the table on this panel.
For an abbreviated list of advanced settings, see the advanced settings help topic.