### User preferences

BSCW lets you set a number of parameters called user preferences that govern the appearance and functionality of your BSCW user interface. The setting of these parameters is your personal choice: a shared workspace does not necessarily look the same for all members.

Attention: Preferences are set for a specific server. If you want to work with several servers in the same way, you have to set identical preferences on all servers.

In order to check or update your user preferences,

• click Options Preferences in the top menu bar.

The ‘Edit Preferences’ form has a number of sections grouping the information making up your user preferences:

o General

o Presentation

o Portal

o Calendar / Task List

o Event Options

o Synchronization

##### General

Subsection ‘Basic Preferences’:

Language: Select the user interface language directly from the drop-down menu or check the automatic language detection option. The latter overrides any language chosen from the menu (also see 2.3 Choosing the user interface language)

Level of proficiency: Choose a user level for yourself which corresponds to your proficiency in using BSCW (also see previous section).

JavaScript: Choose whether you want to use JavaScript for the enhanced BSCW user interface whenever JavaScript is enabled by your browser, or whether you do not want to use JavaScript. Also see above for the non-JavaScript user interface.

Email: Specify the format of email messages you receive from BSCW (most prominently the daily activity reports) and whether you want to receive a copy of all email messages you send via BSCW (“blind carbon copy”).

Subsection ‘File Handling’:

File upload: Check the upload helpers you want to use for file upload. The [Launch] button starts the installation of the BSCW Desktop program (also see 9.5.3 BSCW Desktop client).

External editors: Select those document types from the list for which you want to activate direct editing with local (for BSCW external) editors. You may then edit documents of these types directly on the BSCW server, i.e. without the usual download-edit-upload cycle. By choosing the action Change Edit the local editor corresponding to the document type (e.g. MS Word) is started directly from within the Web browser.
Note that direct editing needs the prior installation of a helper application. Details on the installation and direct editing in general are given in 5.1.4 Editing documents using external editors.

##### Presentation

Subsection ‘Basic Preferences’:

Display theme: Select ‘Black & White’ for a less colourful BSCW interface or ‘BSCW (Orange)’ to switch back to the standard.

Maximal number of visible entries in folder listings: Use this option to limit the number of entries shown in a folder listing. If the number of entries in a folder listing exceeds the maximum you specify here, the listing is split up into several pages and you have to leaf through the listing instead of scrolling. Buttons leading to the next or previous page are provided at the top and bottom of the entry list.

Set font size by browser: Check this option if you want to control the font size in the BSCW user interface via your browser settings. If this option is not checked, browser settings concerning the font size are ignored and BSCW controls the font size of its interface.

Remember each folder’s view options: Check this option if you want to individually store the viewing options of each folder. If this option is not checked, viewing options set for one folder are valid for each and every other folder. For details see 4.3.4 Views on folders, especially the subsection on the scope of viewing option.

Use pop-up dialogs: Check this option when you prefer to have action forms presented as pop-up windows in a tabbed format. If this option is not checked, action forms will be presented standard forms with sections that may be folded and unfolded for better overview.

Optimize date input for pointer device (mouse): Check this option if you prefer to enter dates using selection lists and your mouse instead of typing them directly using your keyboard.

Subsection ‘Icons in instant access bar’: Check the icons you want to have presented in the instant access bar.

Subsection ‘Icons in action shortcut bar’: Check the icons you want to have presented in the action shortcut bar.

##### Portal

Show portal at login: Check this option when you want BSCW to come up with your personal portal when you start a BSCW session.

Number of entries in widgets: Specify the default maximum number of entries to be shown at a time in widgets that are organized as a list of entries, like workspaces, events, news etc. Widgets are the rectangular windows that make up your personal portal.

##### Calendar / Task List

Time scale, Week start, Workdays: Specify on what time scale appointments are to be presented in day and week view, the first day of the week and what counts as workdays for you. The latter settings govern the arrangement of your calendar views.

Generally add all tasks that you create to your task list: Your task list (accessible via GoTo Tasks ) contains all tasks that you are to carry out. If you want to monitor also tasks that you create, i.e. request of other people, via your task list, check this option.

For appointments you may specify whether

• appointments that you create in a group calendar are automatically copied into your personal calendar (also if you do not participate!),

• appointments where you do no longer participate are automatically removed from your personal calendar, and whether

• appointments are shown in a new browser window.

##### Event Options

BSCW provides several event services that notify about new events in BSCW. The different event services use different ways of delivery for the event notifications. For the event services that you have activated, you may subscribe to the notification about the different event types (read events, create events etc.). For details see 3.4.4.1 Setting the default event options.

Subsection ‘Active Event Services’:

Here, you may select the event services most suitable for your needs by checking the respective options.

Subsection ‘Subscribed Event Types’:

Here, you may subscribe to being notified about the different event types for each of the active event services. By folding out the menus () of the different services you are presented with the different event types. You may also check a complete event service that will you then notify about events of all types.

If an event service does not show up in the list, check whether you have activated the service in the ‘Active event services’ subsection of the action form.

##### Synchronization

The options in this section concern the synchronization of BSCW documents with their counterparts on your local computer via the briefcase, a personal object (like the trash or clipboard); see 9.7 Briefcase.

Local briefcase folder: Enter the (changed) location of the local briefcase as a path in the local file system.

Note: When you change the location of the local briefcase folder, the old briefcase folder will not be taken into account when the next synchronization takes place, and documents changed in the old briefcase will not be transferred to the BSCW server. To prevent any loss of data you should change the path to the local briefcase folder only after a successful synchronization. You may want to delete the old briefcase folder from your local computer. During the next synchronization, the new local briefcase folder will be created.

Transfer document versions into local briefcase: Check this option to also have the versions of versioned BSCW documents transferred to your local briefcase folder. If this option is not activated, only the current version of a versioned BSCW document is transferred to the local briefcase folder during synchronization.

Expand local document names by default extension: Check this option to have document names expanded by standard file extensions when transferred to the local briefcase folder. A BSCW document docname of MIME type ‘Adobe PDF’, e.g., will be transferred to the local briefcase as docname.pdf.