Properties on the Layout page describe the Shortcut's appearance, as well as the placement of the Shortcut's associated
target window
on the Windows desktop, outside of the
Montage Desktop window.
- Position: pixel coordinates of the Shortcut
within the Montage Desktop window.
You can use the Left and Top spinners in the upper section
of the Layout page to make adjustments to Shortcut
placement, which can be difficult to do as precisely by dragging and dropping with
the mouse.
Tip: Use the cursor
keys to make precise changes to the selected Shortcut's position,
without having to open the Shortcut Properties dialog.
Also see the Format menu
for commands and hot keys to move and arrange entire columns and rows of
Shortcuts in a single action.
- Autosize: checkbox indicating whether the Shortcut's
title
is automatically resized to fit its text.
If checked (the default), the title's height and width are determined automatically,
with word-wrapping enabled. When Autosize is ON, you can
still adjust the width (to some extent), but the height becomes a
read-only field, because it is derived according to the number of lines
required. The permissible Autosize title widths are dictated by the
lengths of words, separated by spaces, so the narrowest allowed width must
be sufficient to display the longest whole word. If Autosize is OFF, you are entirely responsible for specifying the title's dimensions, but automatic word-wrapping is still in effect in either
case. You can also use the Title,
Autosize
command from the Shortcut
context menu to toggle this setting. Note that autosizing is
implicitly turned OFF when you use Ctrl
+ cursor keys to change the height of a Shortcut, but not if you change
its width (without the Shift key).
- Width: title width, in pixels, for the
line(s) appearing below the Shortcut's icon.
When the
Autosize
property is checked,
you have only limited control over the width setting, because of the
effects of word-wrapping. By inserting blanks in the title text,
you can give yourself more flexibility to make smaller width
adjustments. If autosizing is turned OFF, you can adjust the title
width
continuously, but you will still need to pay attention to the effects of
word-wrapping for legibility. Width adjustments also can be made
through the Title, Wider
and Narrower commands of the Shortcut context menu
Tip: Try using Ctrl
+ left or right cursor key to quickly adjust the with to the the next permissible whole-word
break, when Autosizing is enabled.
- Height: title height, in pixels, for
the line(s) appearing below the Shortcut's icon.
You can only adjust the title height when the Autosize
property is unchecked. Otherwise, when
autosizing
is turned ON, the
height is determined automatically. You can also adjust the height
via the Title, Taller and Shorter
context
menu commands.
Tip: Also try using Ctrl
+ up or down cursor keys to adjust the title height manually. (This automatically
turns the Autosize option OFF.)
- External Window Position and Size: pixel
coordinates and dimensions, Left,
Top, Width, and Height of the target
window.
While the target external application is open,
Montage monitors and displays its exterior window size and
position on the Windows desktop, and these properties are read-only.
If the target is closed, the external window position and size indicate the
last known arrangement, which will be restored upon next launching, and you
can alter these settings. If the
external window
position and size
properties are all zero, it means that their values are unspecified, i.e. Windows will determine them automatically (based on information in the Windows
registry) when the target is next launched. You can
quickly force the Shortcut back to this "unspecified" state by
using the Reset button.
Note that these properties correspond to the window's "normal" zoom
state, regardless of whether it is currently minimized or
maximized. (You can tell the current zoom state by the color of the highlighting
when the Shortcut is open.) This group of properties does not apply to
internal Shortcuts for Montage's built-in viewers.
- Reset: forgets external
target window sizing and placement, allowing Windows decide the defaults.
This sets the Left, Top, Width, and
Height properties to 0, meaning "unspecified". After a Reset, Windows will determine the
window position and size automatically (generally based on information in
the Windows registry) when the target is next launched. The Reset button is disabled while the Shortcut is open.
- Icon: path to this Shortcut's icon image,
which is displayed in the Montage Desktop.
You can enter or paste a path into the data entry field, or click on the
Icon button to pick an image file. The icon file would
typically be of type ICO, but Montage also supports ANI, BMP, CUR, DIB, GIF,
and JPG file types. Montage automatically
determines a default icon when you specify a Target,
but you can override this choice. (If the specified
icon file doesn't exist, Montage substitutes its own default, but if the
file exists and is not a valid image, an x-ed out gray box is
displayed.)
When the
Shortcut's Icon is
Target option is turned ON, the icon path text entry
field is disabled, because the icon's path is determined
automatically
from
the Target specification. However, if you select a different icon by
using the Icon pushbutton or the equivalent Icon...
context menu
command, the Icon-is-Target option is implicitly turned OFF.
When you pick an icon via the Icon pushbutton, as opposed to entering the path
directly, the
pathname to the icon will be expressed in either relative or absolute form,
depending on the global Advanced,
Relative Paths
setting in effect when the icon was picked. Whatever changes you make to the choice of icon, you can simply use Reset Icon to Default
to revert to Montage's default. Also see the Copy
Icon Path command, the global Image is
Icon setting, and additional options on the
Icons page of the global Shortcuts
dialog.
Typically, Shortcut icons
would reside either in the Montage
program directory (for built-in default icons only) or the Icons
directory, which Montage populates automatically by extracting icon resources from files
as it encounters them. You
may find it useful
also to store icons
elsewhere, e.g. as files to be distributed along with a portable
montage, making appropriate use of relative
paths. As a further refinement, you can employ Montage's dynamic
Internet fetching, so that icon images need not be
distributed
directly, but can instead be retrieved automatically, as needed.
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