To edit the global preferences for Drop Drawers, choose Preferences… from the Edit menu (Drop Drawers must be the frontmost application).

Application

• Open Automatically at Startup. Set whether you want Drop Drawers to be opened when your Macintosh starts up (this places an alias to the Drop Drawers application in the Startup Items folder of your System Folder).

• Bring Finder to Front at Startup. Set whether you want Drop Drawers to bring the Finder to the front after it has been launched.

• Use Navigation Services if Possible. Set whether you want Drop Drawers to choose files or folders using Apple’s Navigation Services (included in Mac OS 8.5 but available for OS 7.5.5 or later). Navigation Services have been known to cause problems with some setups, so switch this setting off if you are experiencing any.

• Use Contextual Menu Plug-ins. Set whether you want Drop Drawers to pass through selected items to the system’s Contextual Menu Manager (available in Mac OS 8), allowing CMM plug-ins to act on the data.

Drawers

• Key to Show or Hide All Drawers. This lets you set a key to toggle the visibility of all drawers on screen. If the drawers ever get in your way, this could be useful. If Pass Key Through for Others is on, Drop Drawers will pass the key press on to other programs, allowing you to set one key for Drop Drawers and any other floating dock application.

• Expanding Delay, Expanding Speed, Contracting Delay. These set how long to wait before and how fast to automatically expand or contract drawers which have the Expand when Mouse at Edge setting turned on (see Drawer Options).

• Always Finish Expanding Drawers. This sets whether automatic expansion of drawers should always complete. The expansion can always be completed instantly by clicking the mouse at the drawer edge.

• Tab Font, Size, Style. These set the font, size and style to use for displaying drawer names in their tabs.

Clip Drawers

• Convert File Specs to Aliases. This sets whether incoming file specs (for example, by dragging from the Finder) should be converted into aliases for storing within a clip drawer. A file spec is similar to an alias except that it contains a much less robust pointer to the original file – if you rename or move the file, the file spec will no longer work.

• Always Create Thumbnails. This sets whether newly created file specs or aliases in clip drawers should automatically have a thumbnail created for them if QuickTime Image Previewing is installed and the file is of the appropriate type.

• Automatically Detect URLs. This sets whether text items coming into clip drawers containing an URL should have the URL detected and shown. We recommend leaving this on.

• Auto Detect Email Addresses. This sets whether text items coming into clip drawers containing an email address should have the email address detected and shown. We recommend leaving this on unless it creates problems with foreign character sets.

• Use Full Icon Square for Clicking. This sets whether the entire square surrounding icons in drawers (belonging to aliases, sounds or scripts) should be active for clicking and dragging, instead of only the areas which the icons specifies.

• Dim Icons for Open Applications. This sets whether clip drawer icons belonging to applications which are currently running should be displayed in the same dimmed style as the Finder uses.

• Show Hierarchical Folder Menus. This sets whether you want Drop Drawers to show hierarchical menus for folders and disks in clip drawers. If this is on, you will be able to Open, Reveal or Get Info on any item within a folder, up to 4 levels deep.

• Collapse on Open File & Go to URL. This sets whether clip drawers should be instantly collapsed whenever a file/alias is opened or an URL is launched.

• Deselect Items on Drawer Close. This sets whether items inside clip drawers should be deselected when the drawer is closed.

• Auto Re-protect after. This sets an optional time interval after which the password to open a drawer must be re-entered, in order to allow the drawer to be used. It is useful if you often leave your computer unattended at home or in the workplace.

Clip Clicks

This table of settings determines what action should be performed for different types of click on different types of items in clip drawer (the click action for process drawers is fixed). Separate settings can be made for single clicks, double-clicks and clicks with the Command key, and for Text, Alias, URL, Picture, Sound and Script items. An action can only be set for double-clicks if the action for a single click is Select (otherwise the single click action will have been performed before the second click was made). Actions in these menus correspond to those available in items’ contextual menus (except Select).