PROGRAM AUTOMATION OPTIONS

These options control features that make using MARC Report easier.

PROGRAM START-UP MODE

This option tells the program what to do when you double-click on a file that is recognized as containing MARC records (as described by the 'REGISTER FILES' option below).

By default, when you double-click on a MARC file in Windows, the program will open on the main menu screen, set the current MARC file to the one you double-clicked on (this value is always visible in the status bar on the lower left side of the MARC Report window), and wait for you to choose an action to perform with this file.

You can use this option to reduce these two steps to one step. For example, if you have defined '.mrc' as a MARC Report extension, and you have set the 'Program Start-up' mode option to 'Edit Session', then whenever you double-click a file ending in '.mrc', MARC Report will open and begin an Edit Session on the double-clicked file.

If you are using MARC Report in a variety of modes, then it is probably best to leave this option set to the default.

PROXY SERVER SETTINGS

This box should be left blank unless you need to specify a proxy server to connect to the internet. For best results, you should set up proxy servers in your internet browser (as opposed to setting it up in each application, eg., MARC Report, that connects to the internet).

To test your connectivity using the current settings, press 'Test'.

For more information on this option, click the 'About' button.

FILE ASSOCIATION

This option allows you to associate file extensions with MARC Report.

When a file extension is associated with a program, you may open that program by doubleclicking on filenames that end in the associated file extension.

To register a file extension with MARC Report, enter the file extension (without the leading dot) and press 'Register'. For example, if the MARC files that you want to associate have names like 'record.mrc', then enter 'mrc' in the edit box.

To undo the association of a file extension with MARC Report, enter the file extension (without the leading dot) and press Unregister.

The association occurs as soon as you press the Register button–the options do not need to be saved.

File extensions are not case-sensitive (though past versions of MARC Report saved the current file extension in uppercase).

CHARACTER ENCODING VALIDATION

This option determines how MARC Report will validate the characters used in your records.

By default, the program follows the value in the Leader/09 (Character coding scheme).

If Leader/09 is coded 'a', the program will use UTF-8 rules to check for valid diacritics, and will report on any characters that are not allowed by those rules. If Leader/09 is coded blank, the program will use MARC-8 rules to check for valid diacritics, and will report on any characters that are not allowed by those rules.

If for some reason, the records you are checking do not have the correct leader/09 value, you can get around that problem by selecting either MARC-8 or UTF-8 as appropriate. In this case, the program will ignore the leader/09 value and always scan the records with the rules for the selected encoding.

LOCAL SYSTEM CHARACTER ENCODING

If you are using MARC Report to edit or review records that will be loaded into a particular library system, you may wish to set this option to the character coding scheme option that your library system requires. This will permit the program to warn you (using a cataloging check message) when any of the records in your file do not match your desired character encoding.

The default is 'N/A' or Not Applicable. Use this option to disable this check.

MARC-8: If you choose this option, the program will require Leader/09 (Character coding scheme) to be coded blank. If Leader/09 is not coded blank, MARC Report will warn you that the character coding scheme for the record being examined is not the one that is required by your ILS system. This is the default option.

UTF-8: If you choose this option, the program will require Leader/09 (Character coding scheme) to be coded 'a'. If Leader/09 is not coded 'a', MARC Report program will warn you that the character coding scheme for the record being examined is not the one that is required by your ILS system.

RUN BACKUP ON PROGRAM CLOSE

This option is not selected by default.

In the past, MARC Report has always made a copy of the files in the Options folder when it is closed. These files are very small and take up little disk space (about the size of plain text email).

Beginning with version 235, this behavior became an option. If enabled, the program will make a backup copy of all files from the Options folder that are less than 50K, with the exception of the 'savedreviews.' files, which can be a bit bigger than 50K for power users. The reason for this filesize check is to prevent the program from copying a large MARC file that might have inadvertently been dropped in the Options folder.

The default location for this backup is a folder, in the MarcReport\Options folder, named something like '2.33-backup', where '2.33' is the current version of the program (see below for more details). If you look at your Options folder you may see a number of these '-backup' sub-folders from previous versions. You can delete these older version folders once you have switched to a new version and feel comfortable that there all of your options have been carried over.

However, it might be better practice to locate the backup folder outside of the MarcReport\Options, perhaps on another drive, if possible. Remember that the safest place for important data is somewhere where it will not be accessed, unless it is part of either a backup or restore operation.

In past, the backup technique employed was primitive–the file was simply copied from one location to another if it was not already present. This might mean that if you trashed your saved reviews, you could only restore them to the state that they were at when the current version was first installed.

Beginning with version 235, an improved backup technique is in place. If the option file is not present in the backup folder, it will be copied to it. After that, whenever an option file is updated, it will be copied to the backup folder by adding a sequence number to the end of the filename. For example, you could have the following files in the backup folder:

savedreviews.dsc –the original file savedreviews.dsc-1 –a copy of the file above the first time it was changed savedreviews.dsc-2 –a copy of the file above the second time it was changed …

The sequencing is limited to 5 copies, at which point the backup starts in at #1 again. This should give enough redundancy to make it possible to restore an option file after an accident, without creating an infinite number of backups.

BACKUP FOLDERNAME

The default location for the options file backup is a folder in the MarcReport\Options folder. If this presents a problem, you can change the backup folder here. Click on the edit box and navigate to the folder that you want to use for your backup instead. If the program has write permission to the folder, it will then use that for the backup. If it runs into any problems, it will fallback to the default location.

Note that backing up over a network may result in a slight pause when you close the program (one or two seconds would be normal; but it may be more on a congested network). If your personal folder is being stored on a server somewhere, this might explain why MARC Report doesn't 'just quit when I tell it to'.

Also note that setting your own backup foldername will circumvent the default behavior of backing up each version's options to a separaate folder.

Hint: in order to select it in the dialog, the folder will probably need to have at least one file in it already.

IMPORT OPTIONS

The 'Accept records' options are customized for specific institutions, and allow the program to automatically add records to the current session from an external source.

These options should not be checked unless you have been told to check one of them by your cataloging project leader.

Please contact us if you have any questions about this.