Setting Preferences

Set Preferences

To set your preferences:

Select ToolsPreferences. The Preferences dialog box appears.
Change the settings for the preferences. Your changes take effect immediately after you click OK.
The Preferences dialog box contains two tabs that organize the preferences that you can change:
- Graph tab
- Rendering tab

Settings on the Graph Tab

Graph Tab of the Preferences Dialog Box

The following sections describe the fields in this dialog box.

Graph size

To change the size that is used for graphs, click the up and down arrows in the Width and Height list boxes. The width and height are measured in pixels. Clicking an arrow changes the value by 10 pixels. Alternatively, you can enter values in the boxes. By default, graphs are created with a width of 640 pixels and a height of 480 pixels.

Tip

To determine the size in inches, you can compute the value in pixels by using a default DPI of 100. For example, if you want a width of five inches, then specify a width of 500 pixels.

To size the graph proportionally, make sure that the Keep aspect ratio check box is selected. If you want to specify the width and height independently without retaining the current aspect ratio, then clear the check box. (This check box facilitates setting the width and the height check boxes and is not itself a preference. If you clear the check box and later reopen the Preferences dialog box, the check box is still selected.)

The size setting applies to all new graphs, including graphs that you create from the Graph Gallery.

Default style

By default, graph SGD files use the ODS Listing destination style. You can select another style from the list box, including a custom style that has been created by using the designer.

The style setting applies only to newly created, blank graphs. Any existing SGD files or graphs that are opened from the Graph Gallery retain their current style.

To see a representative sample for any of the styles, open the Graph Style Editor and select the style. An image of the style is displayed in the right side of the editor. To open the editor, select Tools

Style Editor.

Recently used files

Specify the number of recently used files to display (when you select File

Open Recent). You can use the up and down arrow or enter a value in the box. The value that you specify must be greater than one.

Graph Gallery at start-up

Select or clear the check box to show or hide the Graph Gallery when the designer is started. This setting takes effect the next time you start the designer.

Use skin

Select the check box to show an embellished interface for the Elements pane and the Add an Element pop-up window. If you clear the check box, then a simpler interface is used. The check box is selected by default.

For displays that show both the embellished and the simple interfaces, see About the Elements Pane.

Show all information dialogs

Select this button to restore any information dialog boxes in which you might have selected the Don't show this dialog again option.

For example, if you open a multi-cell graph from the Analytical tab of the Graph Gallery, by default the designer displays the following dialog box:

If you choose not to show this dialog box again, you can later reverse that decision by clicking Show all information dialogs in the Preferences dialog box.

Preference File location

This file location is for informational purposes only. If you delete this file, either accidentally or intentionally, the designer regenerates the preferences with their default values the next time you start the designer.

Settings on the Rendering Tab

Rendering Tab of the Preferences Dialog Box

The following sections describe the fields on this tab of the Preferences dialog box.

Rendering options

Select or clear the check boxes to enable or disable anti-aliasing of data labels, axis text, or both. When you select the Axis check box, the setting applies to axis labels and tick values. The settings have no effect on titles and footnotes.

When you enable anti-aliasing, the designer produces smooth-edged type by partially filling the edge pixels. The following letters show the difference between anti-aliasing and not anti-aliasing.

Anti-aliased	Not Anti-aliased

Anti-aliasing creates higher quality graphs, but consumes more resources. For graphs with a very large number of observations, this option can increase the rendering time.

Note: These settings have no effect when the graph is re-created in SAS by using the SGDESIGN procedure.

Data limit

Specify the maximum number of values to display when a graph contains a group or a classification variable. Select or enter the number for the group variable, the classification variable, or both variables.

If a graph exceeds the number that you specify, the designer issues a warning similar to the one shown here. You can cancel the operation or continue and override the preference setting.

You can also specify the maximum number of observations in the data set to be rendered by selecting or entering a different value in the Size list box. If a data set exceeds the specified size, a warning message is displayed. You can then cancel the operation or continue and override the preference setting. The minimum value that you can enter is 1,000.

These limits are in place to mitigate situations in which you select a very large data set or a classifier variable that has a large number of levels, such as a ZIP code that is used for a group variable.