The Options command contains two tabbed dialog boxes, which provide access to specific font and file packing settings used by ProVal (described below). Changes made to these settings will be saved automatically in your PROVAL.INI file and thus will be retained for future ProVal sessions. For more information, see PROVAL.INI settings.

 

View tab

Click the Font button to select a font, font style (essentially regular, italic, bold and bold italic) and font size for displaying the list of entries on the main screen. For example, you might increase the font size to make entry names easier to read (tip: first try adjusting font size by using Windows Control Panel, so that the change applies to all applications, not just to ProVal). Additionally, or alternatively, you might select another font. For example, if your entry names rely on alignment for easy readability, you might select a fixed width font such as “Courier New”, as displayed for these two (Valuation Assumptions library) entries:

1/1/2009 NEW ASSUM NQ LS

1/1/2009 OLD ASSUM  Q ANN

The name of the currently selected font is displayed to the right of the Font button.

To revert to the standard Windows font, click the Default System Font button. Unless the default font had already been selected, the text displayed to the right of the font button will now indicate that the default system font is used and the font name will be shown in parentheses.

 

Pack tab

When you close a client (or open another one), ProVal prompts you to pack the library files if unused space exceeds certain thresholds. On this tab, you may set the thresholds for prompting to pack. For example, you might want ProVal to prompt you if unused space in the library files exceeds:

• 1,000,000 bytes and is more than 20% of the total space, or

• 200,000,000 bytes, regardless of the percent of the total space exceeded.

In this case, you would enter values of “1,000,000” for the bytes and parameter, “20” for the % of the total space parameter and “200,000,000” for the bytes regardless of percent parameter.

If you have modified any of these settings, you can reset it to ProVal's default by blanking out the value before clicking OK.

You may also specify whether ProVal should offer to pack database files that have unused space, besides packing library files. To pack database files whenever library files are packed, check the Pack database files when library files are packed box. See Pack Files for more information.

The last parameter on this tab, the Delete messages in Batch Message Log older than x days check box, enables deletion of batch log messages older than a specified number of days and thus helps to keep the library files compact. The box is checked by default and the number of days is preset to 30. If you wish to delete all messages in the log, enter 0 for the number of days.  If this box is checked, ProVal will delete messages older than the indicated number of days, regardless of whether the packing criteria have been met, when a client is closed or when ProVal is exited.  ProVal also will delete messages during the AutoPack process (e.g., packing may occur automatically when the client is closed) and during user-initiated packing under the Pack Files command of the File menu.  Note that additional options related to deleting unneeded batch log messages exist in the Batch Log Message view, behind the View Prior Batch Messages button of the Batch Execution command of the Execute menu. Note also that the entire batch message log can be emptied when the Pack Files command is executed.