Configuring Amaya

Amaya uses different configuration files to get initial values for global parameters, dialogs, shortcuts, window size and position, user's style sheet, and so on. You can change most configuration parameters through various preferences dialogs.

One or more instances of Amaya

By default only one instance of Amaya is allowed to run at a time. Each new invocation is redirected to the running instance. This option can be changed by setting the environment variable AMAYA_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES=yes.

Configuration directory and file conventions

Amaya uses a number of default directories to store configuration information.

The `config` directory

Amaya stores most of the default configuration files (fonts, shortcuts and preferences files,) and all of the dialog messages in the config directory. This directory's parent is the one in which Amaya was installed.

Unix

Amaya/config where Amaya=binary_path/../..

(e.g. /usr/lib/Amaya/config)

Windows

$HOMEDRIVE:\$HOMEPATH\amaya
by default
C:\Documents and Settings\$user_name\Amaya\config

Mac OS X

/Applications/Amaya.app/Contents/MacOS/Amayax.x/config

The `AmayaHome` directory

Amaya stores the user preferences and other user configuration files in a directory called AmayaHome. An existing directory could be selected by the user using the system environment variable AMAYA_USER_HOME. Otherwise Amaya selects a default position.

Default AmayaHome Directory :

Unix	`$HOME/.amaya`
Windows	`$HOMEDRIVE:\$HOMEPATH\amaya` by default C:\Documents and Settings\$user_name\amaya
Mac OS X	`~/Library/Application Support/amaya`

This directory is preserved even when installing new versions of Amaya. It may contain the following files:

thot.rc: Contains the user preferences, changed through the Preferences dialog.
amaya.keyboard (Unix), amaya.kb (Windows) or amaya.kb-mac (Mac OS X): Defines Amaya keyboard shortcuts for the corresponding platform.
amaya.css: Contains the user's style sheet.
dictionary.DCT: Amaya provides a multilingual spell checker. By default, the spell checker works with two dictionaries: English and French (you can download other dictionaries from the W3C servers). When you want to register a new word, the spell checker creates or updates this personal dictionary.

Note:
The amaya.keyboard, amaya.kb, amaya.kb-mac, and amaya.css files are loaded at launch time. If you change them, you must quit and restart Amaya to take the changes into account.

The `AmayaTemp` directory

Amaya stores all the temporary files it creates in a directory called the AmayaTemp directory. The following table shows where this directory is stored within different architectures:

Unix	`$HOME/.amaya`
Windows	`$HOMEDRIVE:\$HOMEPATH\amaya` by default C:\Documents and Settings\$user_name\amaya
Mac OS X	`~/.amaya`

Amaya creates files in this directory when browsing or printing a document. The cache is also stored in this directory. You can change the cache directory by using the Cache preferences.

Amaya always tries to delete the temporary files it creates. However, if Amaya crashes, the temporary files are not deleted. This will not impact subsequent executions of Amaya.

These dialogs are found under the Preferences entry on the Edit menu (Amaya menu on MacOS X). Nine preferences dialogs are available: General, Browsing, Publishing, Cache, Proxy, Colors, Window geometry, Annotations, WebDAV, Templates, Mail.

Each of these dialogs contains three action buttons:

Apply: Validates and stores the options shown
Defaults: Restores, but does not save, the default values. Use the Apply button to validate the options.
Cancel: Dismisses the dialog.

General preferences

Profile

Amaya may be configured so as to include more or less features, with their corresponding user interface components. The set of features available at a given time is called a profile.

In General preferences a menu allows you to choose the profile that meets your needs (Lite, Lite+Web, etc.). The chosen profile is not applied immediately when pressing the Apply button. You have to restart Amaya to activate the new profile.

The "Advanced" profile allows you to edit any kind of web documents (XHTML, MathML, SVG, CSS, XML, compound documents, and templates). This profile is recommended.
The "Lite" profile provides the minimum set of commands needed to edit very simple XHTML documents with a minimum of CSS style.
The "Lite+Web" profile adds Web browsing commands.
The "Lite+Web+CSS" profile adds advanced CSS style commands.
The "Lite+Web+CSS+Math_Graphics" adds MathML and SVG editing commands.

Panel bar position

Tool panels can be displayed, on left side of the window, or on the right side of the window, or customizable.

If you select the Customizable option, you may:

Re-order the list of panels: You click on the title of the panel and drag it to the right position in the list.
Display panels on both sides to get access to all tools at the same time: You can move a tool panel by clicking on its title and drag it to the other window side. The final position of the cursor (not the panel) must be exactly on the window side.
Detach a panel: If you move a tool panel to a different position than a window side, the panel is set floating.
Remove/Add a panel: When you click on the cross in the panel title, the panel is removed. You can also close and open a panel with the Show/Hide toolbars submenu of the Views menu.

Font and language options

This section of the General preferences dialog lets you choose the font zoom level and define the dialogue language used in Amaya. These options are explained below.

Font Zoom.You can zoom in and out, document window by document window. Each document (text and images) displayed within a zoomed window will be displayed larger or smaller than its real size according to the current zoom. This option enables you to change the font zoom for all windows. This change affects only font sizes but not image sizes, and is reflected immediately in all open document windows.

Dialogue language. Specifies the language for all of Amaya's menus and dialogue messages. At the present time, alternate languages are available: American English (en), French (fr), German (de), Italian (it), Spanish (es), Portuguese (pt), Finnish (fi), Hungarian (hu), Russian (ru), Turkish (tr), etc. When launched, Amaya loads dialogue files according to the current dialogue language: en-, fr-, de-, it-, es-, pt-, fi- or tr-, etc. files. These dialogue files are located in the Amaya/config directory.

Home page

This field specifies the URI that Amaya will load when launched or when the user clicks the home page button. An example is http://www.w3.org

Note: A complete URI must be used.

Check boxes

The options below can be toggled on or off by clicking the check box next to an option name. A mark in the box indicates that the option is active.

XML editing mode. The user can set his/her default editing mode (Text or XML).

Preserve lines when pasting. This option concerns the pasting form an external application. When that option is active, Amaya keeps lines in the source application. If not active, newline characters are replaced by spaces. This option is immediately effective.

Keep multiple spaces. When that option is active, Amaya generates no-break spaces to keep multiple inserted spaces. This option is immediately effective.

Generate backup files. When that option is active, Amaya generates a backup file for each edited document, after a given volume of modification. This option is immediately effective.

Anti-aliasing. Controls whether anti-aliased fonts are used (better rendering when this option is used).

ISO format for date. Controls whether generated dates are displayed using the ISO format (DD-MM-YYYY) or the American format (YYYY/MM/DD).

Show targets. Controls whether link targets should be shown in all document main views. Show targets may be useful when one wants to create new links.

Display all shortcuts. Controls whether shortcuts sequences should be shown in menus.

Warn when closing multiple tabs. Ask Amaya to display a dialog when several tabs are closed at the same time.

Show "Tip of the day" at startup. Controls whether the "Tip of the day" is shown at startup.

Access keys

This option lets you specify the Alt or Ctrl modifier used to manage access keys of documents, or says that access keys are ignored.

Note: The Alt modifier could not work because it is used by UI widgets.

Browsing preferences

The Browsing preferences dialog control loading of pages.

Check boxes

The options below can be toggled on or off by clicking the check box next to an option name. A mark in the box indicates that the option is active.

Check duplicated IDs. Request to check duplicated IDs when loading a document. That option will increase the reading time of documents.

Load images. Controls whether images should be loaded. This option is immediately effective.

Load objects. Controls whether objects should be loaded. This option is immediately effective.

Show background images. Controls whether background images should be shown. This option is only effective when loading a new document.

Apply CSS. Controls whether CSS style sheets should be loaded and applied or not. This option is immediately effective.

Double-click activates link. Since the first version of Amaya, users double-click a link to activate it. This enables you to choose whether to edit a link or activate it. You can override this behavior by deactivating this option.

Opening location

This option gives the default behaviour selected by the user when:

A recent document is open from the File/Open document submenu.
Another URI is selected in the combobox of the navigation toolbar.

Current screen type

Defines the current screen type. This value has an effect when a CSS style sheet specifies a media. This option is immediately effective.

Language negotiation preferences

If a document exists in different languages and your server is configured to do language negotiation, you can use this dialog to enter your language preferences (the first one has the highest priority). Try browsing this press release, which is available in French, English, and Japanese versions. By changing the language negotiation to the ISO codes for the above languages (fr, en, or ja) you can transparently request any of these versions.

Publishing preferences

The Publishing preferences dialog lets you set preferences for ETAGS and preconditions, whether to verify each PUT command with a GET, set the default name for URLs ending with a slash, and enable PUT redirections on specified domains. These options are explained below.

Charset for new documents

Defines the charset used for new documents.

Check boxes

The options below can be toggled on or off by clicking the check box next to an option name. A mark in the box indicates that the option is active.

Add the xsl stylesheet for MathML elements. Generate a call to a xsl stylesheet able to transform included MathML elements into external objects. This xsl stylesheet was developed by the MathML working group to make Internet Explorer able to display this kind of compound documents.

Use the application/xhtml+xml MIME type for XHTML documents. This option, if enabled, associated the new, official XHTML MIME type to all new XTHML documents that are published on the Web. This option is disabled by default because not all servers can handle this MIME type at the time of this release, Note that this requires also a change in your server configuration, if it's not storing somewhere the metadata associated with each document. This option does not modify the MIME type of existing documents: the MIME type that is received is the same one that will be used when saving the document, except if you do a Save as operation, of course.

Use ETAGS and preconditions. HTTP/1.1 introduces new headers that avoid the lost updates problem when publishing. With this option, you can detect conflicts when two users are publishing the same document.

Verify each PUT with a GET. If you don't trust your server, this option tells Amaya to retrieve each document as soon as it has been published and compare it with the copy stored in your workstation. If the documents differ, Amaya will warn you.

Export CR/LF. This option, if enabled, precedes each line feed by a carriage return (DOS format).

Fixed line length

That option gives the maximum number of characters expected in lines generated by Amaya when it creates a HTML or XML file. When the value is 0, Amaya uses its own default value (today 78).

Default name for URLs finishing in '/'

An HTTP server usually associates URLs that finish in '/' with a default name, for example, Overview.html. This option enables you to specify the default name that Amaya should use when publishing such a URL. Ask your Webmaster for the default name for your server.

Allow automatic PUT redirections on these domains

According to the HTTP/1.1 specification, PUT operations should not be automatically redirected unless it can be confirmed by the user, because this might change the conditions under which the request was issued. You can avoid having Amaya prompt with a PUT redirection warning by entering the name of the server's domain to which you are publishing. You may specify one or more domains, each separated with a space, e.g., www.w3.org groucho.marx.edu.

Cache preferences

Amaya provides a cache through libwww. The cache is enabled by default and is stored in the AmayaTemp/libwww-cache directory. This tab also provides a Flush Cache button for erasing the cache directory.

Check boxes

The options below can be toggled on or off by clicking the check box next to an option name. A mark in the box indicates that the option is active.

Enable cache. Activates or deactivates the cache.

Cache protected documents. By default, documents which are protected by a password are stored in the cache. Use this option to override this behavior.

Disconnected mode. Always retrieves documents from the cache.

Ignore Expires: header. Does not expire cache entries.

Cache directory

Identifies the address of the libwww-cache directory. Changing this directory does not erase the contents of the previous one. You must remove it yourself.

Cache size

Gives the size, in megabytes, of the cache repository.

Cache entry size limit

Gives the maximum size for a cache entry.

Flush cache

This button allows you to flush the current cache.

Passwords preferences

Amaya allows you to store the connection data typed in the authentication dialog. These data are the user's name and user's password associated to a server name/realm name pair.

Remember passwords for sites

When this button is on, the authentication dialog asks the user if he wants Amaya to remember the typed password. If off (default option), the user will not be able to store these authentication data.

Remove all

This option allows you to remove all the authentication datas stored in Amaya.

Sites

This list allows you to remove a name/password pair associated to a server name/realm name pair.

Proxy preferences

You can use this dialog to specify a proxy and a set of domains where the proxy should or should not be used.

HTTP proxy.Identifies the proxy to be used for HTTP requests. You must specify the full name of the server. If the server is running in a port other than 80, then, like in a URL, you need to add a ":" char to the proxy name, followed by the port number. The table below provides two examples.

HTTP Proxy Entry

Result

groucho.marx.edu

Declares a proxy called groucho.marx.edu running at the default port 80.

groucho.marx.edu:1234

Declares a proxy called groucho.marx.edu, running at port 1234.

Proxy domain list

Lists space-separated domains where you want to use your proxy. Use the switch buttons to specify if the proxy should or shouldn't be used with this domain list. For example:

harpo.marx.edu zeppo.marx.edu chico.marx.edu
              ^--------------^----> space separated entries

Color preferences

This dialog lets you select the default foreground and background colors for documents. It enables you to control the colors used by Amaya to display the current selection.

Document foreground color is the default foreground color of displayed pages.
Document background color is the default background color of displayed pages.
Selection color is the foreground color that shows the selection when it's limited to an insert point.
Selection background color is the background color that shows the current selection when it's extended.

All these colors may be selected by name, hex code, or RGB format:

Proposed valid names.
Valid hexcode format is #FF00FF, for example.
Valid RGB format is rgb(255, 0, 255), for example.

You can also select colors with the associated color palette.

Check box

The options below can be toggled on or off by clicking the check box next to an option name. A mark in the box indicates that the option is active.

Color source. Activates or deactivates the coloration of document sources.

Note: Color changes will be effective when you open a new document window.

Window geometry preferences

Save geometry on exit. Controls whether the current windows geometry should be saved when the application is exited.

Two buttons enable you

to save the current window size and position of the current window,
or to restore the default values.

Note: These changes take effect when you open new document windows.

Configuring annotation settings

Annotation user

The author of the annotation. By default, Amaya uses the login name of the user. This field enables you to change your user name to something more meaningful.

Annotation post server

This setting defines the server to which the annotations are posted. Local annotations are always saved to the local repository, and by default, this setting is empty. The post server is not automatically included in the list of servers, so you should enter the post server name in both places.

Annotation servers

A list of servers Amaya should contact when looking for annotations. You can specify one or more servers. The reserved server name localhost tells Amaya to search the local annotations, but does not necessarily mean that a local annotation server is running (or it would show a complete URL ).Under Unix, the annotation servers are specified as a space separated list. Under Windows, you can add a new server name by clicking in the Annotations servers list, pressing the Enter key, and then typing the server name . By default, this list is initialized to localhost.

Tip: To temporarily disable an annotation server, add a "-" char before its URL. Amaya will ignore it.

Check boxes

The options below can be toggled on or off by clicking the check box next to an option name. A mark in the box indicates that the option is active.

Autoload local annotations. Whether Amaya should request local annotations automatically every time you browse a new Web page. If it is not checked, then you can manually choose Load annotations from the Tools/Annotations submenu.

Autoload remote annotations. Whether Amaya should request remote annotations automatically (by querying the annotation server) every time you browse a new Web page. If it is not checked, then you can manually choose Load annotations from the Tools/Annotations submenu.

Note: You may experience a delay when Amaya loads remote annotations in resolving the DNS name of the annotation servers.

Disable remote autoload at each startup (for offline work). Whether Amaya should reset the autoload remote annotationsoption at launch time. This option can be useful if you are working offline, but still want to autoload the local annotations as well as the remote ones.