### 7.7 Options ¶

In the MFC GUI selecting the `Preferences` category on the ribbon allows you to set a few options of Msc-generator.

In the first category you can specify what is the text of the chart that pops up when a new chart of the current type is created. Just press the button and the current text will become the default for the current chart type. You can place your frequently used constructs here to be readily available when you start a new chart; or just delete everything here to start real empty.

Under ‘`Options`’ you can set a few compilation options. When pedantic is set Msc-generator enforces stricter language interpretation. For signalling chart, it means generating a warning if an entity is not declared explicitly before use. For graphs, it means generating a warning for each use of directed edges in undirected graphs and vice versa (graphviz does not allow such mixing), but when turned off, mixing directed and undirected edges in a graph becomes possible. For Block Diagrams, it prevents auto-generating an block when mentioned without a ‘`box`’ or similar keyword. This allows forward referencing blocks in arrow definitions (by avoiding their creation instead of referencing a later definition). Turning the second option on will supress the generation of warning messages altogether (including the ones generated due to the pedantic option). Checking the third option will show the full path of the filename in error messages. This is useful when using `include` and suspecting the precise identity of the included file with an error. When ‘`Ask char type`’ is set, Msc-generator displays the list of available chart types at startup and when creating an empty document and you can select one. If unchecked, the last file type is used always. When ‘`Technical Info`’ is ticked, a summary of the compilation is shown among the errors and during compilation colored progress indicators show the various stages of compilation. This is mostly for debugging. In the third column you can control automatic behaviour. ‘`Auto paste clipboard`’ makes Msc-generator to automatically paste the content of the clipboard, whenever an alt-text embedded chart is copied to it. (Except when you have unsaved changes in the currently edited chart. In that case you can use the ‘`Paste Entire Chart`’ button in the ‘`Home`’ ribbon category.) Checking ‘`Auto Save`’ will save the chart text every time you make changes (except for OLE embedded charts). Finally, ‘`Instant compilation`’ will recompile the chart every time you make changes.

On the ‘`Appearance`’ panel you can first select the color of the tracking overlay (what flashes when you click on a chart element). ‘`Show Page breaks`’ governs if a dashed line is drawn to show where page breaks are when watching all of the pages. See Multiple Pages for more information. Lastly you can also set the maximum zoom factor selected by the Overview and Fit to Width automatic zoom modes. You may want to increase this for very large screens. See Zooming.

The ‘`Mscgen compatibility`’ panel is applicable only to signalling charts and governs how Msc-generator switches to backwards compatibility mode with mscgen. See Mscgen Backwards Compatibility for more.

On the last panel you can specify which external text editor to use. You can select any editor using the first option. In this case you have to give a command-line to start the editor and one to invoke to jump to a certain line by pressing the button to the right. The latter can be omitted if the editor does not provide a command line option to jump to a certain location in an existing editor window. Use ‘`%n`’ for the filename and ‘`%l`’ for the line number; these will be replaced to the actual filename and linenumber at invocation.