Preferences Window
Open the Preferences Window by
selecting "Preferences" from the MenuBar or pressing
"⌘,".
This window has six toolbar buttons: a "general" button, a
button for miscellaneous "windows" settings, a button for
"chimes" settings, a "scenes" button, a "soundfiles"
button, and a “synths” button. Clicking one of the buttons
shows that page of settings. Note that all changes take
place immediately so you can bring up Preferences to tweak
settings and then watch the changes.
General
Check "Reset sound every 24 hours" to have SonicMood reset its sound routines every 24 hours, avoiding the Quicktime "no sound after 24+ hours" bug. If you don't leave SonicMood running for long periods you can uncheck this if you wish. However, it does no harm leaving it checked. Use the "restart info" window (open/close from the "Window" MenuBar item "restart info" (⌘6)) to monitor when the next restart will occur. This time will be 24 hours from the last time you started SonicMood.
Check "Ask before adding, deleting, or resetting" to get a confirming prompt before adding or deleting Moods and Themes, deleting Scenes, or resetting Moods. This is checked (on) by default. Uncheck it only if you don't make mistakes...
The "Pause MIDI recording..." setting (if checked) will pause any MIDI recording you're doing (see Help topic "MIDI Recording") when SonicMood pauses. This includes "Sleep Timer"-induced pauses as well as user-induced pauses. The recording will continue when SonicMood is no longer paused. If this box isn't checked, the MIDI recording will continue (and record silence) during pauses of SonicMood.
Check the "Quit when SonicMood's main window is closed" box to have the program quit when you close the SonicMood window. If unchecked, closing the SonicMood window will not cause the program to quit. Click SonicMood's dock icon or press "⌘1" to bring back the SonicMood window. This box is unchecked by default.
If you check "Click-Pause-Click on a list cell to edit" you'll be able to edit the Mood name, Theme name, Scene name, or all 3 columns of the Scales list, just by click-pause-clicking on them in their respective lists. If this option is unchecked, you can still edit by Right/Control-clicking on an item's list cell and selecting "Edit List Item" from the contextual menu that appears. You can also edit the Mood, Theme, and Scene names using MenuBar items. Mood and Theme name editing is provided under the "Mood" menu, and Scene name editing is found under the "Scene" menu. If Click-Pause-Click is enabled, the pause between clicks needs to be just slightly longer than (but less than twice) your double-click speed. You can set your double-click speed from OS X's System Preferences (Keyboard & Mouse button, Mouse tab). If you click the second time and nothing seems to happen, you probably waited a little too long between clicks.
Clicking on the green “+” in SonicMood’s title area ordinarily will cause SonicMood to zoom to a compact size, similar to what happens with the iTunes window. If you prefer to have SonicMood’s behavior more like that of the finder windows, check the “Zoom SonicMood normally when green “+” clicked” checkbox.
If you check the "Use finger pointer over button and slider controls" checkbox a "finger pointer" will appear to guide you when the mouse cursor hovers over a button or a slider control.
To have SonicMood automatically check for a newer version at startup, check the “check for a newer version on launch” checkbox.
You can select the minimum increment the main volume, instrument volumes, and soundfile volume sliders take when adjusted manually. Just click the radio button next to the desired increment. You can also choose to have a logarithmic volume scale. Check the "log" checkbox for this. The volume slider scale will become logarithmic and the volume will change to more closely match the sensitivity of human hearing. Note that this will not affect the "Relative Volume" sliders on the "Instruments" and "Soundfiles" pages of the "Edit" window.
SonicMood will "fade up" the volume when beginning a Mood, starting from zero and gradually increasing until the current volume setting is reached. The "volume fade up (sec)" slider lets you select the length of time the fade up takes (in seconds). Set the time to “0” to disable fade up.
The "volume fade down (sec)" slider lets you select the length of time the fade down takes (in seconds). Set it to “0” to disable fade down. Volume fade down happens if a Mood change occurs because of a timed event (either the Mood interval timer or the time of day timer). If you manually select a Mood the current Mood stops playing immediately and the selected Mood starts. A "fade up" of volume will occur if the "volume fade up (sec)” has a non-zero setting, however.
The font size of text in lists and the marquees is adjustable using the "Font Size" slider.
The "Save Changes Delay" slider lets you select how long SonicMood should wait before saving any changes you've made. SonicMood will automatically save changes after this delay time. SonicMood always saves changes while shutting down, too.
Windows
"Show window contents while resizing" should be checked if you'd like to view the effect of resizing a window while you're dragging the resize tab (lower right corner of the window). If the resizing is sluggish, you can uncheck this box. You'll see an outline of the window while resizing, and the window will redraw when you're finished. Live resize is always on for the Chimes Window.
When checked, "Don't Open SonicMood window if dock icon clicked" keeps the main (SonicMood) window from opening if all windows are closed and the SonicMood dock icon is clicked. Instead only the MenuBar appears. You may have the main window appear by pressing "⌘1", if desired.
If you're running OS X "Tiger" (10.4+) and you'd like the toolbars to have the new "Unified Toolbar/Titlebar" look, check the "Use unified..." box.
You can set the shadow state and opacity of the SonicMood, Scene, Scene List, MIDI Recording, Chimes, and Colors window using the "Show a window's shadow" checkbox and the "Window Opacity" slider.
By default SonicMood limits the position of its windows to within your monitor screen's area. This prevents, for example, a window accidentally being positioned so far off the screen that it is no longer retrievable. Floating windows like the "chimes" and "colors" windows are not prevented from being moved outside the limits, but will be positioned within the limits when closed and re-opened. Normal document windows can be dragged outside the limits but will "jump" back immediately to within the limits. If you'd rather not have this behavior, uncheck the "Limit a window's position" checkbox.
The rest of this page is devoted to “Color Selection.” You can change the colors of windows, buttons, list highlights, and the SonicMood and Scene window “marquees” (the informational displays near the tops of both windows). There are two ways to make changes: use a pre-defined “scheme”, or manually select each item’s color.
You can select color schemes for the items by checking the "use scheme" checkbox. There are a few pre-defined schemes you can use, and you can change them or add your own. To restore the original pre-defined schemes, press the "reset all" button (themes you've changed or added will be lost). Uncheck "use scheme" to make changes to the colors by clicking the various color squares and selecting other colors. After you have a new scheme defined, click "save changes as." A window will open where you can enter a scheme name or edit the current scheme's name. You can completely remove a scheme by clicking "remove." When finished, just re-check "use scheme" to use your new or modified theme.
If you are editing a color ("use scheme" is unchecked), click the color square next to its name to open a standard "color chooser" window and select a new color. The checkbox "use SonicMood" causes that item to use the color chosen for the equivalent SonicMood item. "Editable Cell Color" refers to the highlight color used in lists to indicate a cell whose contents can be edited directly. Note that you can't change a color if its "use SonicMood" checkbox is checked, or the "use scheme" checkbox is checked. Also note that as a background color changes any embedded text will adjust between black or white to maintain good contrast.
Chimes
You may hide the "resizing tab" that appears in the lower right corner of the window by checking the "Hide this window's resize tab" box. You can still resize the window by dragging that corner, even if the resizing tab is hidden.
The chime tubes can be arranged in a "linear" fashion (in a row) or a "circular" fashion. Click the radio button for the arrangement you'd like.
Scenes
If you'd like the Scene list window to change height and show all the names in the list instead of using the scroll bar, check the "Auto size the Scene list" box.
Checking "Keep the Scene's aspect ratio" causes the Scene to display with the width to height ratio the original picture had. Uncheck this if you want the Scene to fill all the available area. You can always go back to the original aspect ratio by re-checking this box.
Soundfiles
The "Hide each Soundfile's extension..." checkbox causes the list of soundfile names on the "Soundfiles" page of the "Edit" window to not include extensions (.MP3, etc.). It is checked by default.
Check "Start each Soundfile with a random volume" to let SonicMood choose a random starting volume for each soundfile when a Mood starts playing. Soundfiles for which the "play & pause on" checkbox isn't checked (on the Soundfiles page of the "Edit" window) are unaffected. It is "on" by default.
Synthesizers
If you've already added any .DLS or .SF2 files to your
"Users//Library/Audio/Sounds/Banks" folder, you should see
them listed here. If not, and you download any, you can
added it to the folder by dragging the file and dropping it
on this list.
Double-click the synthesizer you want SonicMood to use. The
new instruments (with the same instrument numbers as were
being used) will begin to play. Note that the list of
instruments on the "individual note properties" page of the
“Edit” window will not change. This list represents the 128
"General MIDI" instruments and is not updated when another
synthesizer is used.
You can manage the synthesizers available to SonicMood
using the buttons at the bottom of the page. Each button
affects the files in the folder mentioned above (and the
list), deleting synth files from it, adding files to it,
opening a finder window with that folder displayed, or
refreshing the list by re-reading the files in that folder.