Only the Owner or other Project with Admin privileges has access to the Setup screens.

Mac setup

  This screen governs many aspects of METER’s behaviour. You can enter license IDs or adjust METER settings on other Macs from this screen: just select the target Mac from the popup menu.

  Name — Initially the "Owner name" from your Sharing Setup control panel. Change as you like.

  License — Enter your METER registration ID here to unlock features you have paid for. If you ever remove or replace your METER Data file, you may need to re-enter this ID. If you want to use METER on another Macintosh, contact us to purchase an additional ID ($5 each).

  Network — Turn off "Broadcast own" if you don't want your work data to be seen by other Macs. Turn off "See others" on any Mac that should not see others' work data, OR on a single-user system. "Secs timeout" is how long METER waits for another Mac to reply before giving up; you might increase this value for slow Remote Access, or reduce it for fast Ethernet.

  Shortcut keys — Set which keys and modifier-keys are used to summon METER’s dialogs. To disable shortcut keys, just uncheck all the modifier-key checkboxes.

  Intervals — Set how often METER surveys your system and updates your records (normally about five seconds; the figure must be between 2-30 seconds. 

  Output file types — Set creators (signatures) for PICT and TEXT output files created by METER.

  Maximum records — Click "Detail" to enable recording of detailed start/stop times, rather than just elapsed time. NOTE: this option significantly increases the volume of data saved, by perhaps four or five times; it will noticeably slow file operations, especially when collecting data over a network.  • You can set the maximum number of days, weeks, and months that METER remembers. METER checks daily if it is time to merge older day records into a single week archive, or weekly archives into a month, and so on. • You can also set the maximum number of projects and signatures that METER will remember. Extras are culled in order of least-recent use. (See Project setup and Software setup regarding data-inheritance after deletions.)


Project setup

  Change a project’s name, password, and address here. • Delete any project (except the Owner), and choose another project to inherit its records after deletion. • Set a project to switch to another when the user falls idle (recommended for the Owner project on multi-user systems).


Software setup

  Change software names and addresses here. The shareware Info field is unused in this version.  • Delete any software type from METER’s database, erasing its settings but leaving old usage records intact. If you use that application again, a new software record will be created.

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Groups setup

  Select Macs, Projects, or Software to change the kind of Group to create or edit. • Enter a Group name and click Create to register a new Group. • When a Group name is selected in the popup control, make selections in the list, edit the Group name if desired, and click Update to save your changes. • Use shift- and command-clicks to make contiguous or non-contiguous multiple selections in the list. • Click Delete to remove the currently displayed Group.

  Check the "Always use parentheses" box to ensure that all Group names are parenthesised. This makes Groups visually distinct in the main data display and menus.

  NOTE: any changes you make in the selection list will be saved, whether you click Update or not, when you change the display or exit the screen. This is an arbitrary abuse of software interface guidelines. Thank you.


Shared setup

  Select a source Mac from the rightmost popup menu. • Select Macs, Projects, Software, Tasks, Groups, or Documents from the middle popup menu to display the relevant records on both Macs (your own Mac's data is shown in the left list.). • Make selections in either or both lists (use shift- and command-clicks to make contiguous or non-contiguous multiple selections). • Click Copy or Replace in the appropriate direction to import or export the selected record(s). • Click Delete to permanently remove the selected records. (See Project setup and Software setup for more information about data-inheritance after deletions.)

  Check the "Name & ID only" box if you just want link record identities without swapping privileges, billing, and other options. For example, you might want to merge project "Accounts" on your Mac with project "Accounting" on another Mac, but you don't want to transfer project privileges as well.

  NOTE: Groups and Docs cannot be imported or exported in this version.

  NOTE: if you Replace a single record with multiple selections, the single record's old data is "taken over" by the first source selection; the remaining selections are just Copied over. • If you Replace multiple records with a single selection, the single selection "takes over" all of the multiple records' data. • If you Replace multiple records with multiple records, one-on-one matches are Replaced individually, other records are merged into one and "taken over" by the first unmatched source record, and the remaining source records are just Copied over, and some other stuff happens. Confusing? Try writing the software!