Setting Catalog Preferences

Catalog preference settings are contained in the Preferences dialog box. Choose Edit >> Preferences and click the Catalog item in the left pane. Notice that the Index Defaults items use the same settings as found in the Options dialog box from the New Index Selection dialog box.

The top three options under Indexing in Catalog preferences are obtained only here in these preference settings. The three options found in the Indexing section of the Catalog preferences are as follows:

  • Allow indexing on separate drives. When creating index files where you want to include folders on network servers and/or computers on your network, select this item in the Catalog preferences. The indexing option includes indexing files only on local networks. Unfortunately, you can’t index files on Web servers and use indexes from within Web browsers.
  • Force ISO 9660 compatibility on folders. This setting is a flag that tells Catalog to look for any folders that are not compliant with standard DOS conventions (eight-character maximum with three-character maximum extensions) for folder/directory names.

If Catalog encounters a folder name that is not acceptable, the processing stops and an error is reported in the Catalog dialog box. Folder names and directory paths are listed for all incompatible names. You can review the list and manually rename folders. After changing folder names, try to create the index again.

  • Enable logging. A log file is created during an index build that describes the processing for each file indexed. The file is ASCII text and can be opened in any text editor or word processor. Any errors occurring during the build are noted in the log file. All documents and directory paths are also contained in the log file.

If you don’t want to have a log file created at the time of indexing, clear the check box to disable the logging. When you disable logging, you are prevented from analyzing problems when you close the Catalog dialog box.

The options listed in the Index Defaults area of the Catalog preferences are identical to the options you have available in the New Index Description Options dialog box. These default/options settings exist in two locations for different reasons.

When you set the options in the Preferences dialog box, the options are used for all index files you create. When you elect to use the options from the New Index Selection Options dialog box, the settings are specific to the index file you create. When you create a new index file, the options return to defaults.

If you set a preference in the Catalog preferences and disable the option in the New Index Selection Options dialog box, the latter supersedes the former. That is to say, the New Index Selection Options dialog box settings always prevail.