Overview - Ecce Gateway and Global Preferences

The Gateway and Global Preferences window enables you to customize the behavior and appearance of some Ecce components as described here. Any changes you make in the window affect you (your account) and no one else. The options in the Preferences window are divided onto two functional tabs:

Tab Preference Options
Miscellaneous various units, date format, audible beep notifications, Gateway behaviors
Run States colors associated with various run state icons of a calculation or job

Key Concepts: The changes you make in the Preferences window affect the behavior and appearance of other Ecce tools . When you open the window for the first time, all preference options are set at the Ecce default values. If you modify these settings, you must "Save" the new settings before they can take effect.

If you open the Preferences window later (during the same Ecce session), the option settings will be as you last left them, regardless of whether you saved them or not. Therefore the displayed settings reflect your last visit to the window in the same session but may NOT reflect the current behavior and appearance of Ecce.

Starting the Preferences Window

gateway preferences

Click on Preferences in the Gateway (above). If the Preferences window is already open, this action will bring the window to the front. To start a separate instance of the Preferences window, shift-click on Preferences in the Gateway (although why you'd want to do that is almost beyond human understanding).

The following items briefly describe elements in the tabs of the Preferences window.

Miscellaneous Preferences

Units
Energy Hartree, kcal/mol, electron Volts, kj/mol, cm-1, Mdyne A
Distance Angstrom, Pm, Bohr
Frequency em-1, electron Volt
Miscellaneous Global
Date Format Choose format for month (m) day (d) and year (y):
mm/dd/yyyy OR dd/mm/yyyy OR mmm dd, yyyy
Notifications Mark these options to cause an audible beep to accompany error and warning messages. These messages appear in the message area of many tool windows.
Beep on Errors ...whenever a message marked "error" appears in the message area.
Beep on Warnings ...whenever a message marked "warning" appears in the message area.
Gateway
Request Confirmation on Exit Mark this option to see a confirmation dialog upon exiting the Gateway. The dialog gives you the option to close the Gateway but leave other tools open. If you do not "Request Confirmation on Exit," then exiting the Gateway will automatically exit all Ecce tool windows (with prompts to save current work, when appropriate).
Show System Busy Icon Mark this option to cause the Ecce "wave" icon in the Gateway to be animated whenever the system is busy (such as opening a new tool window). Or unmark this option to prevent the animation.
Tip: If you want to stop the animation for just one instance, click on the Ecce wave while it is moving.

Run States Color Preferences

Use the Run States tab of the Preferences window to set the colors of the calculation run state icons wherever they appear in Ecce.

Note: The icon representing an "imported" calculation is always set to the same color as the "completed" icon . The color of the "imported" icon is not specified separately.

Item Description
Ecce The first column of icons (labeled Ecce) shows the system default colors.
username The second column of icons (labeled with your username) shows the optional color set, which you define.
State The State buttons are for setting the corresponding username icons to the current color in the color selector.
Color Editor

Select from the following checkboxes to pick a color selection method.

Name Color editor by name Check this option to select a color from the color name drop-down list. A sample of the selected color will display in the Color field when you select a color.
Picture... Run States Color Preferences by Name
RGB Color editor by red, green, blue Check this option to use slider controls to adjust Red-Green-Blue (RBG) color components independently. Decimal indicators on each slider indicate the value (0-255) of each component color. A sample of the selected color will display in the Color field as you adjust the colors.
HSB Color editor by hue, saturation, brightness Check this option to use the sliders to adjust the colors to the desired Hue, Saturation, and Brightness (HSB) components independently. Decimal indicators on each slider indicate the value (0-255) of each component color. A sample of the selected color will display in the Color field as you adjust the colors.

To choose your own color set:

  1. Choose one of the three Color Editor checkboxes for selecting new colors.

  2. Optional: Click on a colored icon in either column to set the color selectors to that color.

    It doesn't matter which type of icon you click on: this action only affects the color selector setting. You might do this, for example, to place the color selector into a range where you can select a similar color.

  3. Select a color with the chosen Color Editor.

    The color panel below the color selector displays the selected color.

  4. Click on one of the State buttons to associate the selected color with that state.

    In the second column the corresponding icon changes to the selected color.

  5. After all desired modifications, click on the Save button to put into effect all the run state color choices in the second column.

Preferences Window Controls

Save the current conditions of all preferences on BOTH tabs.
You MUST use the Save button if you want any modified settings in the Preferences window to take effect.
Reset the preferences on BOTH tabs to Ecce default values.
Close the Preferences window.
When you next open the Preferences window, it will display the same settings it displayed when the window was closed.
Show this online help for using the Preferences window.
Ecce Online Help
Revised: August 14, 2003 		Disclaimer