VS-Console preferences dialog

To the left of the dialog are the four popup menus and the Check Communications button which work in exactly the same way as in the startup dialog. When the Save button is pressed the settings of the four popup menus are recorded along with the other preferences so that they will be automatically selected again at start-up.

To the right are various options which control how the program works:

OMS ID Five radio buttons allow the selection of the OMS ID that the program reports to OMS on startup. This should - in principle - allow the use of two copies of the program to be run on the same computer with two separate VS machines (obviously a multiport interface is required since the VS machines cannot share the same ports). To work, the programs have to be in separate directories because obviously they must not share the same config file. NBRunning two copies of the program at the same time is an experimental option which could crash the computer if it does not work correctly - if OMS gives a warning, do not continue. Changing the ID number and then saving the preferences will cause the program to use the new ID number next time it is started up. This option could also be useful in the unlikely event that the default OMS ID that the program uses conflicted with another OMS-using program.

Fixed Device ID Certain MIDI interfaces can combine an instrument and pass-through port on the same line (this is the case, for example, with the Yamaha To Host interfaces). When the program starts up it asks the VS to identify itself, but it is possible that the instrument on the same port will reply as well which then causes the decoding of the Device ID which the VS should have sent to be incorrect. In such a case, it is possible to force the program to continue (ignoring the timeout beeps) and then in the Preferences set the Fixed Device ID number to match that of the VS (default is 17). To do this, click on the Fixed Device ID check box and the edit box for the device number will appear so that it can be set. At this point pressing the Check Communications button will cause the program to specifically check for a VS with the set Device ID (an asterisk will appear next to the Device ID in the reply message dialog showing that the value is fixed). Saving the preferences will ensure that this fixed Device ID will continue to be used by the program.

Active Controls The standard operation of the program's on-screen controls is to wait for the user to set the new control value before sending the change to the VS. If Active Controls is selected (it is recommended to disable Verify all changes as well) then the program sends new control values as the user moves the mouse up and down. This means that the action of the rotary controls is changed so that their values follow the vertical motion of the cursor, and it will also be seen that the slider control knob no longer follows exactly the cursor position (because the sliders have a shorter range in screen pixels than the actual allowed data range). This setting applies to all the control windows.

Verify all changes The standard operation of the program is to read back all changes sent. However, if using the Active Controls setting or making changes while the VS is playing back a song it is preferable to reduce the MIDI traffic to avoid swamping the VS MIDI buffers. Switching off this option stops the program reading back changes made to continuous controllers (rotaries and sliders).

Speech and key control Enabling this option requires the Speech Manager to be present (Apple Text-To-Speech software). Clicking on the check box when it is off will cause the program to try to speak a test phrase. If no error is reported then the speech feedback and keyboard control mode is enabled. An edit box will also appear which allows the speech speed to be adjusted relative to the default system setting (the value is a multiplier, which means that 0.5 means speech half the default speed and 2.0 means twice the default speed). Clicking on the check box when it is checked will simply disable the speech feedback again.

In order to save the preferences for use by the program whenever it is run use the Save button. This creates a Config file in the same directory as the program. Do not edit this file manually. Renaming the file or moving it to another directory will disable it (since the program only looks in its own current directory).

Clicking the Ok button exits the dialog.