This portion of the Program Options dialog will only be available if you're logged in with an Administrator access level.
Current database path -- This shows the complete disk and directory path of the currently open database. The database name itself isn't shown, but you can see the database name in the program's caption bar. This field is not editable -- to open a different database, use the File / Open function from the main menu.
Auto-open database file and path -- This shows the complete path and the file name of the default database, which opens automatically every time the program starts (unless another file is specified in the command line of the shortcut icon, as in the case of the Demo icons). This is generally set when the New Database function is done to start a new one, or the first time a File / Save a Copy As is done with a name other than "demo". The only way to change the auto-open database is to open the desired database and click the "Change" button below this field.
Change the Auto-open database to the Current database -- This button will change the setting above, so the currently open database will be used as the default from now on. This should only be done if you're sure that the current database is what you want all future changes to go to.
Automatically save the database after each action -- This option is enabled by default, so that the database is saved to the computer's hard disk after every action -- for instance, after every new reservation, check-in, transaction, or anything else that changes the database. Note that it's saved after every main dialog is closed, not while working in the dialog. While it's preferred to leave this enabled to avoid data loss in the case of a malfunction or power loss, you may need to turn it off if it causes a noticeable delay due to a slow computer or large database. You may also wish to disable this option if you are experimenting or making changes that you're not sure you want to keep, so you could reload the previous database without saving the new changes.
Compress the database backups to a ZIP file -- This option is enabled by default, so database backups take less space on a floppy disk. This results in the backup database being compressed using the common ZIP file format, which will take one fourth the disk space or less. (Don't confuse this with ZIP brand disks by Iomega.) This also allows the backup to be made to multiple disks if it's too large to fit on one disk (disk spanning is only possible with this option enabled). The built-in Restore function can read these ZIP files directly, and any commercial file compression utility, such as WinZIP, can extract the database from the ZIP file. While there is no real advantage to turning this option off, there may be rare cases where a ZIP file cannot be created (usually due to a Windows configuration problem, an error message appears when making a backup in this case), so you can turn this off if needed.
Include Map images and Form bitmap files -- With this option enabled, any map image files used (through Maps Setup) and any bitmap files used on custom Forms are included in all compressed backups, and will be automatically restored if a Restore is done to an existing database. (However if the "current" database location is not known, as when restoring to an <UNTITLED> database, then the image files are not restored because the correct location is not known.) Note that this also includes the files in the "Request a full database refresh" networking function, so this can be used to copy or update Maps and Form bitmaps from the master to the client computers.
Remind me to back up the database every ... days -- When the program is closed, it will remind you to back up the database if you haven't done a manual backup in so many days. By default this is 3, and we recommend no longer than that. But if you have an automated backup system in place for the entire system, you may decide to turn this reminder off (set it to 0) or make it longer as needed. Note that this is 24-hour periods, so if you set it to 1 day then it will remind you every day when you shut down, unless it has been less than 24 hours since the previous backup.
History logging enabled -- This option is enabled by default, and makes the program write out a log of every change made to the database. This is required for proper functioning if you are networking multiple computers, and can also be helpful if you aren't using the auto-save option above (to restore changes lost due to a power outage, for instance). If you are not using networking and you do enable the auto-save function, then history logging is not necessary, but it could still be helpful for tracking down problems (for instance, to determine if a reservation was deleted by accident). While the log is in text format, it's not necessarily easy to interpret without some technical knowledge. Contact Cottonwood Software if assistance is needed.
Lock/Unlock logging enabled -- This is not required for any functionality and is only useful for diagnosing network problems. Since it increases log size and delays, it should not normally be enabled.
Check history logs for unsaved changes after loading the database -- This option can be used to automatically restore changes "lost" due to computer crashes or power outages. (However it can also cause a significant delay when starting the program, so you may want to only use it in emergency cases.) This will check to see if any changes have been logged (assuming history logging was enabled) since the database file was saved. If it detects that some unsaved changes exist, you will be prompted to re-apply them. This can be extremely helpful in the even that you must restore the database from a backup after a computer crash -- assuming the log files are intact, it will be able to automatically re-apply all changes made since the backup was made.
Automatically delete logs after ... days (0 to 999 days) -- Depending on your disk space, you may want to have the program automatically delete the oldest history logs automatically. This also applies to the automatic database backup files that are created each day. The size of the log files depends on the amount of activity each day, but generally a 30-day history is only a few megabytes. You should keep at least 7 days of logs available in case a restore is needed. You can also set this value to 0 to completely disable log deletion -- however, the automatic database backups will never be deleted in less than 7 days unless the hard disk is getting full.
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