Using Director > Director basics > Converting movies created in previous versions of Director > Setting general preferences |  |

Setting general preferences

To control some of Director's default settings relating to the Stage and the user interface, you can use the General Preferences dialog box. These settings control the appearance of movies only in the authoring environment, not during playback.

To set Director default values:

1 | Choose File > Preferences > General.
2 | To specify the default size and location of the Stage and the way it animates when deactivated, choose Stage options.
| The Stage location settings affect the location of the Stage only in the authoring environment. To set the location of the Stage during playback, see Setting Stage and movie properties.
| Use Movie Settings sets the Stage size to the movie's Stage size and location.
| Match Current Movie opens a new movie in the Stage size of the movie that's currently open.
| Center positions the Stage in the center of the screen by default, which is useful if the Stage size is smaller than the screen size. Otherwise, the movie plays using its original Stage position.
| Reset Monitor to Movie's Color Depth (Macintosh only) automatically changes the color depth of your monitor to the color depth of a movie when it is opened in the authoring environment. See Changing the color depth of a movie.
| Animate in Background runs animation in the background while you are working with other applications. When you are running animation in the background, the Stage remains on the screen, and the active application window appears in front of the Stage.
3 | To set defaults for the Director user interface, choose User Interface options:
| Dialogs Appear at Mouse Position displays dialog boxes at the mouse position. If this option is not selected, dialog boxes are centered on the monitor that contains the menu bar.
| Save Window Positions on Exit saves the positions of all open windows every time you quit so they reappear in the same location when you start again.
| Message Window Recompiles Scripts makes Director recompile all scripts when you press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh) in the Message window. With this option off, Director recompiles scripts only when you choose Control > Recompile All Scripts.
| Show Tooltips controls the definitions that appear when the pointer is over tools and buttons. Turn off this option to stop definitions from appearing.
| Show Stage Scrollbars makes scroll bars appear in the Stage window.
4 | To specify the unit of measure to use in the text ruler, choose inches, centimeters, or pixels from the Text Units pop-up menu. See Formatting paragraphs.
5 | (Macintosh only) To allow Director to use available memory beyond the amount allocated to it, turn on Use System Temporary Memory.