General preferences
With general preferences, you can customize the general behavior of your Desktop App to suit your needs. For example, you can configure the startup behavior for the Desktop App so that the application automatically restores all tabs from your previous sessions when you log in to Alloy Navigator Express . You can also specify how to indicate non-empty tabs.
Options window - General tab
You use the General tab of the Options window to customize the general behavior of the Desktop App. To access the Options window, select Tools > Options from the main menu.
When starting section - specifies what the Desktop App displays whenever it starts (for details, see Specifying the startup location):
Show dashboard - shows the dashboard.
Show all tabs from last time - restores all tabs from your previous session.
Show saved tabs - restores saved tabs from your previous session. If you did not save your tabs, the dashboard will be shown. For details on saving tabs, see Saving the current layout of tabs.
Tabs Options section - specifies how to indicate tabs containing grids:
For tabs that contain grids show - specifies whether to indicate the records' tabs that contain non-empty grids with a bullet or the number of records the grid contains. For details, see Indicating non-empty tabs.
Close Options section - specifies whether a confirmation dialog box appears before exiting the application.
Confirm before exiting the application - enables a confirmation dialog box, which appears when you click the exit button "x" in the upper-right corner of the application window or press ALT+F4 on the keyboard and asks you if you really want to close the application.
NOTE: This option applies both to the Desktop App and Settings App.
Applying general preferences
Click a task to see detailed instructions:
-
Specifying the startup location
You can configure what Alloy Navigator Express will display whenever it starts.
To change Alloy Navigator Express
-
Select Tools > Options from the main menu. The Options window opens.
-
Under Startup, select one of the following options:
-
Show dashboard - shows the dashboard.
-
Show all tabs from last time - restores all tabs from your previous session.
-
Show saved tabs - restores saved tabs from your previous session. If you did not save your tabs, the dashboard will be shown. For details on saving tabs, see Saving the current layout of tabs.
-
Click OK. The next time you start Alloy Navigator Express , you will see the new startup location.
-
-
Indicating non-empty tabs
The most of Alloy Navigator Express objects display their details using multi-tab windows, and some of those tabs contain grids. You may want to quickly identify tabs containing non-empty grids and configure Alloy Navigator Express to supplement the title of those tabs with a bullet or the number of grid records.
To enable a non-empty tab indicator:
-
Select Tools > Options from the main menu. The Options window opens.
-
Under Tabs Options, select one of the following options from the drop-down list:
-
no record indicators - does not indicate non-empty tabs.
-
bullet indicators - displays a bullet in the title of tabs with grids: a colored bullet
for non-empty grids and a dimmed-out bullet 
for empty grids.
-
record count - displays the number of records the grid contains.
-
Click OK.
-
-
Enabling or disabling a confirmation before exiting
You can configure Alloy Navigator Express to display a confirmation dialog box before exiting the application. This dialog box appears when you click the "x" button in the upper-right corner of the application window or press ALT+F4 on the keyboard and asks you if you really want to close the application.
To enable or disable a confirmation before exiting:
-
Select Tools > Options from the main menu.
-
Under Close Options, select or clear the Confirm before exiting the application check box.
-
Click OK.
NOTE: This option applies both to the Desktop App and Settings App.
-