❓Preferences

Descriptions of all of Flying Logic's user preferences.

The Preferences dialog is displayed using the Edit ➡ Preferences... (Win) or Flying Logic ➡ Preferences (Mac) command.

General Options

Auto-Backup on Save

The Auto-Backup on Save checkbox determines whether a backup file of the last saved version is created each time an existing document is re-saved.

Enable Auto-Recovery

🆕 NEW IN 4.0 When enabled (default) Flying Logic will restore unsaved changes whenever it restarts. You are also able to quit Flying Logic without being asked to save changes to existing documents.

Save your work and keep backups!

Auto-Recovery is not a substitute for regularly saving and backing up your work: you are responsible for making sure you avoid unintended data loss.

Opening Files

Flying Logic can open documents in their own window, as a tab in the current active window, or ask how to open each document.

Check for Updates Automatically

When selected, Flying Logic will periodically use your Internet connection to check whether an updated version is available for download.

Undo Levels

Flying Logic keeps track of the number of undo levels entered into this box. The default is 100.

Recent Documents

Flying Logic keeps track of this number of recently opened documents in File ➡ Open Recent. The default is 20.

Recent Scripts

Flying Logic keeps track of this number of recently run scripts (Max Scripts), importer scripts (Max Importers), and exporter scripts (Max Exporters). The default is 4.

Auto-Edit New Entity Titles

By default Flying Logic requires you to press Tab after creating an entity in order to edit its title. But since editing an entity’s title immediately after creating it is such a common operation, you can make it the default behavior by turning on this option.

Disable Control-Alt Menu Shortcuts

(Windows Only) Some international keyboard layouts require the Control-Alt modifier combination for typing. In this case, setting this preference causes Flying Logic to not use this modifier combination for its menu shortcuts.

Flying Logic must be restarted for this preference to take effect.

Display Options

Each time the diagram changes, an animated transition is shown between the old state and new state. Several aspects of this transition are controllable via preferences.

Fixed-Speed vs. Adaptive Speed

If the Adaptive Animation box is unchecked, each transition will take a fixed amount of time controlled by the Animation Speed (Seconds) slider. If the Adaptive Animation box is checked, each transition will take an amount of time determined from the “visual complexity” of the animation. With adaptive animation, simple changes to the diagram result in quick animations, while complex animations with many objects moving result in slower animations that allow the eye to better track the changes. With adaptive animation, the Speed slider can still be used to control whether the animations happen faster or slower.

Turning Off the Animation

If the Adaptive Animation box is unchecked and animation speed is set to zero seconds, the animation does not take place, and layout changes to the diagram appear instantly.

Animation Style

The animation style radio buttons control how Flying Logic chooses which frames of the animation to generate. If Fixed Frame Rate is selected, then Flying Logic will choose a number of frames over which to perform the animation based on the animation speed (at a nominal 30 frames-per-second) and will draw every one of those frames. This option may look better on slower hardware. The preferred, default style is Fixed Time, where Flying Logic dynamically chooses which frames to draw based on the amount of time the last frame took to draw. This results in animations running at what often feels like a steadier pace, and is particularly suitable to faster hardware. Try both options and keep the one that feels best to you.

Edge Colors

The color of edges in your diagrams depends on this setting. The default is Red..Gray..Black, which means that edges with negative weights are drawn in red, edges with neutral settings are drawn in gray, and edges with positive weights are drawn in black. The other options are Red..Yellow..Black and Red..Yellow..Green.

Spinner Display

The Spinner Display preference determines what symbols are drawn inside of spinners.

	None	Symbol	Numeric
Confidence Spinner	nothing	0%: F 100%: T other values: nothing	0..100
Edge Weight Spinner	nothing	-100%..-1%: – 0%: O 1%..100%: + | -100..100	-100..100
% Complete Spinner	nothing	0%..99%: nothing 100%: C	0..100

Default Orientation, Bias, and Compactness

The Default Orientation, Default Bias, and Default Compactness settings control the orientation (flow direction), bias, and compactness of newly-created documents. Any document can have these settings changed using the Layout Inspector. For more information see Layout.

Project Options

These preferences apply only when Project Management is enabled.

Default Standard Calendar

This setting determines the number or work hours in a day for the Standard calendar of any newly-created document or documents that were created in Flying Logic 1 or 2.