The Preferences dialog can be displayed by choosing “Preferences” from the “Edit” menu. Since there are so many useful ways of using StuffIt, StuffIt provides a way for you to customize its operations to maximize its benefits for you. Preferences are divided into four (4) panels which are explained individually below.
General
Since aliases are files that refer or “point” to other files, StuffIt can Stuff the original file or just the small alias file. Checking the “Stuff originals instead of aliases” check box would allow StuffIt to Stuff original files and not aliases. Note: This feature is only available on machines running System 7.
StuffIt can recognize certain types of files as already being compressed and so it would rarely be worth the computational effort or time to compress it more. Checking the “Don’t Stuff files that are already compressed” check box would allow StuffIt to skip these files and quickly go on to the next item.
If the “Verify writes” preference is checked, StuffIt will perform an extra level of error checking as items are Stuffed into an archive.
When you open an archive which was created as a version 1.5.1 archive with a previous version of StuffIt, the “Convert 1.5.1 archives to 3.0 on Open” preference will make StuffIt automatically convert it into a StuffIt 3.0 version archive. Version 1.5.1 archives cannot be saved as self-extracting archives and cannot take advantage of the increased speed and efficiency of compression in StuffIt Lite 3.0.
Checking the “Detect viruses with: [Select…]” preference will make StuffIt communicate with your favorite virus protection application using Apple events. Each file that gets Stuffed or UnStuffed will be scanned for viruses. Click the “Select” button to indicate which virus application StuffIt should use. Note: This feature is only available on machines running System 7. Check with the vendor of your anti-viral utility to see if they support Apple events.
People have different suffixes they like to use to indicate folders. The “New folder suffix” is where you can tell StuffIt to use your favorite suffix when it creates a new folder in an archive.
Palette
If the check box is checked, the archive palette will always be displayed. To keep the archive palette hidden, do not check this option.
Clicking the individual archive palette buttons will display the Color Picker dialog so that you can colorize each button.
Default Stuffing Settings
If the “Compression” check box is checked, each item will be Stuffed using the default compression method. If it is not checked, each item will be added to the archive without using any compression.
If the “Encryption” check box is checked, each item will be Stuffed using the default encryption method. If it is not checked, each item will be added to the archive without using any encryption. The Stuff dialog “Encryption” check box can overide this default setting. This feature is enabled in registered copies of the software only.
Views
While the “General” and “Default Stuffing Settings” panels modify how StuffIt operates, this panel is concerned only with the appearance of an archive. You may enable or disable the display of entire columns of information.
The “Show kind” option displays the “kind” column in the archive. “Kind” indicates the kind of file being displayed.
The “Show label” option displays the “label” column in the archive. Any item can have a label associated with it. You can set or modify an item’s label from an item’s “Info” window.
The “Show date” option displays the “date” column in the archive. The date refers to the last modification date of the item.
The “Show expanded” option displays the “expanded” column in the archive. “Expanded” indicates the size of an item as if it were UnStuffed from the archive.
The “Show stuffed ” option displays the “Stuffed” column in the archive. “Stuffed” is the space occupied by an item while it’s contained in the archive.
The “Show saved ” option displays the “saved” column in the archive. This column indicates the percentage of space saved by Stuffing an item into the archive. For example, a 50% savings indicates that a file compressed to one-half of its original size.
With the “Show sizes in” choices, you can choose between kilobytes (K) or bytes for the size displayed in an archive window.
The “Show archive info in header” option displays, immediately below the window title, information about the archive. The information displayed includes the number of items in the current level, the amount of space occupied by the archive, the location of the archive and the amount of free space left on disk.
The directory pop-up menu is the menu that appears in the window title of the archive to allow you to navigate out of folders in the archive. If the “Show directory pop-up without ⌘ key ” preference check box is checked, the downward pointing triangle which indicates that the pop-up is available will appear in the window title when you double-click to enter a folder and display its contents. If check box is not checked, the pop-up menu will not appear and so will not be available unless you hold down the Command (⌘) key at the same time as you click the window title area. (This is how the Finder works too!)
Exiting and Saving Changes
Clicking the “OK” button will put all the modifications you made to the preferences into place immediately. Clicking the “Cancel” button will cancel all the changes you made while the Preferences dialog was displayed.
