.The Application Settings dialog box is invoked by the Settings button of the main window or from the respective menu.
It can be invoked at any moment when working with the program. It is used to customize general parameters of the program. The dialog contains the following tabs:
Each tab opens a page where you can adjust certain types of settings.
The Material tab enables you to specify properties of steel (values of Ry and Ru), limit slenderness, and values of the following factors:
It is advisable to follow the recommendations of the design codes when specifying this information. However, the deviations are not detected or prohibited, so the user is actually free to do as he likes. If the deviation is undesirable, the data should better be specified in the modes Steel, Limit Slenderness, and Service Factor. From there, the data will be automatically transferred to the tab described here. In such a case the tab provides only reference information.
The values of the limit slenderness can be modified by the user if he thinks that the recommendations of the respective mode are inaccurate or insufficient. The values entered here must be positive integers.
The Units of Measurement tab enables you to define units of measurement used in the analysis. It contains two groups of data. The first group is used to specify measurement units of linear sizes, forces, moments, etc.
For compound units (such as those of moment, pressure, etc.), there
is a possibility to define their component units (such as those for force
and for moment arm) separately using the button .
The second group helps to choose a representation and precision of numerical data. Special controls are used here to select data representation formats. Make sure to specify the number of significant digits in either the fixed-point decimal representation or the floating-point scientific notation.
The precision of the data representation (the number of significant
digits after the decimal point) can be assigned using the 
(decrease) and 
(increase)
buttons, while the scientific notation is turned on by the button 
. You can also specify
in respective text fields which values should be treated as negligibly
small, so that all absolute values less than the given ones will be displayed
as 0 in all visualizations.
The Report and Languages tab enables you to choose a language for the user interface and for the report.
There are two modes for working with a report document: View/Edit or Print.
In the View/Edit mode, clicking the Report button in any active dialog will open the report and allow you to view/edit it. An application associated with RTF (Rich Text Format) files (such as MS Word Pad or MS Word) will be invoked to serve this purpose.
Obviously, it is the user who is fully responsible for any changes made to the text of the report (note that even results of the calculation can be edited).
There are differences in RTF formats used by MS Word v.7, MS Word 97 (2000/XP) and Open Office. Therefore, the program allows you to choose one of the formats in the Type of Report mode (besides RTF a report can be created in the following formats DOC, PDF, HTML). Clicking the Print button in the Report group will print the report in the form it has been generated by the program.
Use the Titles text field to
specify an RTF file containing headers and footers for pages of the report
document. The file can be selected from a standard list by clicking the
button .
The Paper Size setting enables you to choose the paper format for printing the report (the size is selected from a drop-down list). Moreover, the margins and the page orientation can be selected before generating the report.
The Short report checkbox enables to reduce the volume of the report document. In particular, a report generated in the Resistance of Sections mode will contain only the results for the load cases where a maximum value has been obtained for at least one factor.
Report Font is used to choose a font type for the report. A double left click invokes a standard Windows dialog for selecting the font. Only the selected font type will be used in the generated reports (style and size are assigned by the software).
The Visualization tab is used to choose a font for the user interface and for the report. A double left click invokes a standard Windows dialog for selecting the font. This page contains also the checkbox for hatching of the force diagrams.
The Sections tab enables you to browse a list of steel profile catalogues available in the application database and select some (or all) of them for further use. There is a checkbox next to each group of catalogues. If the checkbox is not checked, the respective group of catalogues will not be available in the application. Catalogues can be arranged in any convenient order (the same order will be used in the lists or the dialog boxes for the profile selection). To move an item, drag it while holding down the right mouse button.
The General tab allows you to activate the Hide window when minimized checkbox. When it is checked the window disappears from the task bar, and an icon appears in the tray area. The window can be opened from the tray area by the left click, and a context menu – by the right click.
Moreover, the Check for a new version at startup of the program checkbox can be activated as well. If it is active, the program will check for a new version on the company website at each startup, and it will give a respective message if it finds a new release.
The UI tab enables to set scales for various user interface elements:
The settings provided in this tab are intended primarily for users with HiDPI displays.
Settings can be saved to an external file using the Save button, which can be subsequently loaded (the Load button).