path: root/doc/chalk/settings.docbook

<chapter id="settings">

<title>Settings</title>

<para>This chapter describes the various settings that affect the way &chalk;
functions and looks.</para>

<sect1 id="settings-preferences">
<title>The <guilabel>Preferences</guilabel> dialog</title>

<para>
A number of options to configure &chalk; are available via the
<guilabel>Preferences</guilabel> dialog, which is available via
<menuchoice><guimenu>Settings</guimenu><guimenuitem>Configure
&chalk;...</guimenuitem></menuchoice>. The dialog is divided into several
sections, which you can open via the sidebar at the left, shown below.
</para>

<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The available <guilabel>Preferences</guilabel> sections</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="preferences-sidebar.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The available <guilabel>Preferences</guilabel> sections</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption><para>The available <guilabel>Preferences</guilabel> sections</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>

<sect2 id="settings-preferences-general">
<title>The <guilabel>General</guilabel> section</title>

<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>General</guilabel> section</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="preferences-general.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>General</guilabel> section</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption><para>The <guilabel>General</guilabel> section</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>

<para>
This section offers three options. First of all, the setting in the
<guilabel>Cursor shape:</guilabel> dropdown box determines what the drawing
cursor looks like. You can choose between a cursor resembling the actual tool
you are working with, a normal cursor, a crosshair, and a brush-shaped cursor.
Then you can select the <guilabel>Palette Behavior</guilabel>. You can set
here when palettes may be <quote>docked</quote> (set aside at a window
border): always (<guilabel>Allow docking</guilabel>), never
(<guilabel>Allow only floating</guilabel>), or when there is enough space
(<guilabel>Allow docking only on large screens</guilabel>). The last option is
<guilabel>Palette font size:</guilabel> which determines the text size used in
the palettes. Set this to a larger value if you have trouble reading the text,
with the side effect that the palettes will take more space.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="settings-preferences-display">
<title>The <guilabel>Display</guilabel> section</title>

<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>Display</guilabel> section</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="preferences-display.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>Display</guilabel> section</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption><para>The <guilabel>Display</guilabel> section</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>

<para>
This section contains just one option. If your graphics card and driver have
OpenGL support, you can enable it here to make drawing faster (the
processor of yor graphics card will take over part of the calculations). Be
warned, though: there are a few cases where enabling OpenGL is known to
introduce erratic behavior.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="settings-preferences-colormanagement">
<title>The <guilabel>Color Management</guilabel> section</title>

<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>Color Management</guilabel> section</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="preferences-color.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>Color Management</guilabel> section</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption><para>The <guilabel>Color Management</guilabel> section</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>

<para>
Here you can set various options related to colorspaces in rendering, editing
and printing of images. The topmost option can be used to set the default
color model for creating new images (useful if you usually want to create CMYK
images, for instance). Use the <guilabel>Display</guilabel> options to let
&chalk; know what color profile your monitor uses, and how rendering should be
done. Under <guilabel>Printing</guilabel>, you can set the color model and
profile for your printer. The next option determines what &chalk; should do
when you paste an image into it that was copied from another application. If
<guilabel>Use Blackpoint compensation</guilabel> is checked, whenever a
colorspace conversion is needed, the black points of the source and
destination colorspaces are matched.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="settings-preferences-performance">
<title>The <guilabel>Performance</guilabel> section</title>

<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>Performance</guilabel> section</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="preferences-performance.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>Performance</guilabel> section</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption><para>The <guilabel>Performance</guilabel> section</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>

<para>
Two options are available here. The <guilabel>Maximum number of tiles kept in
memory</guilabel> setting indicates how many tiles (image subparts) &chalk;
will keep in memory. The default setting should be reasonable, if you are low
or very high on memory, you may want to decrease or increase this option,
respectively. The <guilabel>Swappiness:</guilabel> option determines how eager
&chalk; will be to swap to disk.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="settings-preferences-tablet">
<title>The <guilabel>Tablet</guilabel> section</title>

<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>Tablet</guilabel> section</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="preferences-tablet.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>Tablet</guilabel> section</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption><para>The <guilabel>Tablet</guilabel> section</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>

<para>
If you have a tablet device attached, you can enable it and set its pressure
sensitivity in this section.
</para><para>
You need to activate the tablet devices you want to use with &chalk;. There
are three supported devices: the cursor, the eraser and the stylus. You can
activate them using the tablet sections. Only use the configuration options of
a device if you use a non-Wacom tablet, and if the behavior of the tablet is
unexpected, like moving when you press on the tablet for instance. In this
situation, you can use the dialog to make sure you have a correct interaction:
values (position, pressure, tilt...) are sent from the tablet to the computer
in a given order, it might happen that some tablets do not use the default
order. You can set this in the configuration options of a device.
</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="settings-preferences-grid">
<title>The <guilabel>Grid</guilabel> section</title>

<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>Grid</guilabel> section</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="preferences-grid.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>Grid</guilabel> section</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption><para>The <guilabel>Grid</guilabel> section</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>

<para>
In this section, you can fine-tune &chalk;'s grid. The line styles for the
grid can be set in the <guilabel>Styles</guilabel> option set.
<guilabel>Colors</guilabel> allows you to choose the line colors for the grid.
The horizontal and vertical spacing between the main lines can be set under
<guilabel>Spacing</guilabel>, as well as the amount of subdivisions (in how
many smaller parts a grid section is subdivided). Furthermore you can set the
<guilabel>Offset</guilabel>: usually the grid is painted starting at the top
left corner, if you want the first main grid lines not to start there, you can
enter an offset (displacement) here.
</para>

</sect2>

</sect1>

</chapter>