TITLE
    Mac OS X Server: About Setting Preferences
Article ID:
Created:
Modified: 		60126
3/11/99
10/31/00
TOPIC

    These notes are for the Mac OS X Server Release of the User Preferences & Computer Settings panels.

    Note: This document was installed by Mac OS X Server in /System/Documentation/ReadMe. For a list of other release notes see:
    Article 30925: " Mac OS X Server: Release Notes "

DISCUSSION

    In this release, you can access commonly used preferences and settings panels via the Apple Menu. The User Preferences submenu contains preference panels that only affect the current user. The Computer Settings submenu contains settings that apply to all users of the machine. Not all available preferences and settings may appear in the submenus. To see a complete list of user preference panels, select More Preferences from the User Preferences submenu. Similarly, to see a complete list of computer settings panels, select More Settings from the Computer Settings submenu.

    Appearance

    The Desktop pattern selection user interface is greatly improved over the DR2 release. To quickly browse through all of the patterns using the keyboard, press Tab until the keyboard focus is on the pattern list. Press the up and down arrows to browse through the patterns.

    To add your own personal patterns to the pattern list, create a DesktopPatterns folder in your home Library folder (~/Library). Any TIFF images that you place in the DesktopPatterns folder will appear in the pattern list.

    Date & Time

    The Network Time tab pane is not completely functional. If Network Time Synchronization is off, clicking the Start button will not turn it on, although the user interface will indicate otherwise. Network Time Synchronization will be activated the next time you restart, however.

    Login Items

    To remove an item from the Login Items window, you need only drag it out of the white area. You need not drag it all the way to the trash. In fact, dragging to the trash is not recommended as this action will cause the system to move the actual item to the trash.

    Monitor

    Changes to the color depth and resolution of your monitor will not take effect until you log out. By default, only the recommended resolutions are shown in the resolution list. Recommended resolutions are those resolutions that the system has determined are supported by your monitor. The system is not aware of all types of monitors, however, and may sometimes only show a severely limited subset of resolutions as recommended.

    To enable the Show All resolutions feature, you can issue the following command in Terminal.


      defaults write Preferences NSEnableShowAllDisplayModes YES


    Be careful! If you attempt to use a resolution that is not supported by your monitor, your display may become unusable when you log out.

    Multiple Monitors

    The Multiple Monitors panel appears in the Computer Settings list of the Preferences & Settings window only when you have multiple monitors attached to your system. With the Multiple Monitors panel, you can arrange how the monitors are positioned relative to each other, and you can specify a main monitor. The main monitor is the monitor on which the login window and menu bar appear.

    The Multiple Monitors panel is disabled by default on Power Macintosh computers because of a potential conflict with the Monitors & Sound control panel in the Mac OS environment.

    Adventurous users can enable the Multiple Monitors panel by issuing the following command in Terminal:


      defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSEnableMultipleMonitors YES


    If you adjust the position of the monitors using the Multiple Monitors panel, you must not adjust the position of the monitors with the Monitors & Sound control panel in the Mac OS environment. Doing so will limit your mouse position to a single screen in the Mac OS environment.

    Network

    The Network panel now supports configuration of multiple network ports. Changes to the DNS search domains, name server addresses, FTP Server, Telnet Server, and IP Forwarding take effect immediately. All other changes require a restart to take effect.

    Known Issues

    The following issueshave been identified. When reporting bugs against the Preferences application, please identify the affected control panel and explicitly associate the bug with the installed release.

    Keyboard Preferences


    Issue     		The Keyboard Panel does not type the correct extended characters in the text edit field. This also occurs in the Keyboard Panel invoked from the Localization Preference.
    Problem In the Keyboard Panel, some key caps are left highlighted when you type quickly in mixed case. This also occurs in the Keyboard Panel invoked from the Localization Preference.

    Date and Time

    These known issues with the Date and Time Preferences option also apply to the System Date & Time Settings panel in the Clock application.

    Issue Not all time zones in /usr/share/zoneinfo are shown in the pop-up menu.

    Description     		Do not attempt to manually set the /etc/localtime symbolic link to a time zone not shown in the pop-up menu.

    Issue     		The time field stops ticking when the system time is set to an earlier time using the BSD date command.

    Workaround     		Click on any day in the calendar. This causes the Revert and Set buttons to become enabled. Click the Revert button.

    Monitor


    Issue     		If you use the keyboard navigation keys (tab, backtab and the arrow keys) to change the slider values, Preferences does not save the settings to the persistent user-defaults database. Thus, when you log out and log back in again, the values you had set in the previous session are not saved.
    Workaround Use the mouse to change the slider values.


Document Information
Product Area: Mac OS System Software
Category: Mac OS X Server
Sub Category: General Topics

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