Preferences

Selecting Preferences from the Other menu lets you control a number of features, including the use of color, the card size, the background pattern, and whether the program will remind you to save unfinished games.

This chapter explains the features of the Preferences window, and also explains how you and the other users of your Macintosh can keep separate preferences and scoring statistics in their own Profile documents.

The Preferences Window

Select Preferences from the Other menu to display the preferences dialog window, which contains the following controls:

(See picture: The Preferences Window.)

Large Cards. By default, this box is checkmarked. If you have a small screen, you may wish to uncheck this box in order to play with smaller cards that take up less room.

Show “Save Game?” Reminders. By default, this box is checkmarked. Uncheck it to turn off the automatic “Do you want to save your game?” reminders. (These can get annoying because you’ll normally get one every time you give up on a lost game.)

Never Use Color. Checkmark this box to use simple black and white, instead of color. Use this option if you don’t like the look of the color card images on a grayscale monitor, or if you want Solitaire Till Dawn to use as little memory as possible.

Change screen to 16 colors.
Change screen to 256 colors.
Don’t change number of screen colors. Use these buttons to force (or not force) the number of colors your screen displays while playing Solitaire Till Dawn. Most people won’t need to change their screen’s color setting, but: If you leave your screen set for fewer than 16 colors, Solitaire Till Dawn will use black-and-white only. If you leave your screen set for more than 256 colors, Solitaire Till Dawn will need a lot of memory to show the games in color. So you may want to change your screen setting if you like to play in color, and your screen is normally set for fewer than 16 or more than 256 colors. The chart in the Installation chapter tells you how much memory Solitaire Till Dawn needs for different color settings.

The Pattern Chooser. The current pattern that is displayed behind the cards in the game window is shown in the Pattern Chooser. To choose a different pattern, click on the left or right arrows above the pattern to cycle through the available patterns until you find the one you want.

The Pattern Chooser is unavailable in black and white.

I Paid. Checkmark this box when you have paid your shareware fee. It will replace the “Register” button and “Please support shareware” notice in the About box with the message “Thank you for supporting shareware!”

OK and Cancel. Click OK after you have made all your choices to save them and make the Preferences window disappear. If you decide to make no changes after all, click Cancel instead.

Profiles

Preferences and scoring statistics are kept in a document called a “profile.” Solitaire Till Dawn will create a default profile document the first time you run it, and will always use that profile unless you deliberately open or create a different one. The default profile is called “Solitaire Till Dawn™ Profile” and is in your System Folder (under System 6.0.x and earlier) or in your system’s Preferences folder (under System 7.0 and later).

You can create and begin using a new profile by selecting New Profile from the Other menu. You can name the new profile anything you like, and place it in any folder. The new profile contains the preference settings that were in effect when you created it, but it has no scoring statistics, so you’ll be starting fresh.

You can open an existing profile by selecting Open Profile from the Other menu. A special button in the Open dialog, labeled “Open Default Profile,” lets you easily return to the default profile again.

Under System 7.0 and later, you can also open an existing profile just by double-clicking its icon in the Finder.

You can see the name of the profile you are currently using at the top of the Preferences window. Any changes you make in the Preferences window will be saved in that profile and not in any other.