The Options item on the menu control how parts of the program work. You may select method used in matching a species, control how the species are displayed after matching or control display of the assistant. Not all options are appropriate to all parts of the program and may be unavailable or 'greyed out'.
This opens a Species Grouping Dialog that allows you to order species in the database according to their characteristics. This is the order in which the species will be listed in the Name Browser and the Thumbnail Browser. The dialog is only available when either of these browsers is on top.
Note that identification after using the grouping option will again re-order the database according to the selected criteria.
This item toggles between the two states when you click on it. Note that since it shows the option that will be selected if you click on it, it shows the opposite state to that already selected. It controls how matched species are displayed after you use the identification button on an Identification Form.
When Show Matched Species As Plates is selected, one or more Species Plates is displayed automatically. The number displayed depends on the state of the Show Exact Matches item.
If Show Matched Species As Thumbnails is selected the Thumbnail Browser is shown from which you may choose a species.
This item toggles between the two states when you click on it. Note that since it shows the option that will be selected if you click on it, it shows the opposite state to that already selected. This is only available when Show Matched Species As Plates is selected. It controls how many plates are shown.
If you select Show Exact Matches Only and there are one or more exact matches, only the plates for those species is shown. If there is nothing that matches your criteria exactly a warning message is displayed and no species plate is shown.
Note that if you make no selection for any question that question is ignored when matching. For example, if you chose only the brown colour button you would get all the brown creatures with a 100% score. Food, habitat etc. would have no effect since you did not use those buttons.
This option is not recommended in most cases - see More On Matching.
If you select Show Best Eight Matches the behaviour depends on whether you have made a choice for the primary criterion (i.e. question 1). If you have not you will simply get eight species plates showing the best matches. (Or as many creatures as are in the selected database if less). If you have, only species that match that criterion are shown.
With this option you will still know when there is an exact match because a 100% match score will be shown on the plate.
This item toggles between the two states when you click on it. Note that since it shows the option that will be selected if you click on it, it shows the opposite state to that already selected. Show help assistant enables the Help Assistant, Hide disables it.
Saves the above options except sort order, that is:
These options will be the defaults when you next start up the program. Sort order is always alphabetical initially.