Options
You can change general and other preferences in MapForce by selecting the Tools | Options command. The available options are described below.
In the General section, you can define the following options:
•Show logo | Show on start: Shows or hides an image (splash screen) when MapForce starts.
•The Mapping view section allows you to set the following parameters:
oYou can enable/disable the gradient background in the Mapping pane (Show gradient background). oYou can limit the display of annotations to N lines (Limit annotation display). For example, if you have set this option to 2, and your annotation text contains 3 lines, only the first two lines of the annotation text will be displayed in the mapping. This setting also applies to SELECT statements visible in a component. oYou can also limit the display of a component's comment to N lines (Limit comment display). For example, if you have limited the comment display to 1 line, and you comment contains more than one line, the comment box will display only the first line. Setting the property to 0 will suppress the display of component comments completely. Note that the Limit comment display option has no effect on comment components.
•Default encoding for new components.
Encoding name: The default encoding for new XML files can be set by selecting an option from the dropdown list. If a two- or four-byte encoding is selected as the default encoding (i.e. UTF-16, UCS-2, or UCS-4), you can also choose between little-endian and big-endian byte-ordering. This setting can also be changed individually for each component (see Change Component Settings).
Byte order: When a document with two-byte or four-byte character encoding is saved, the document can be saved either with little-endian or big-endian byte-ordering. You can also specify whether a byte order mark should be included.
•Preview Settings: The Use execution timeout option sets an execution timeout when you preview the mapping result in the Output pane.
•On activating Output pane: You can generate output to temporary files or write the output directly to an output file (see below).
Generate output to temporary files: This is the default option. If the output file path contains folders that do not exist yet, MapForce will create these folders. For Professional and Enterprise editions: If you intend to deploy the mapping to a server for execution, any directories in the path must exist on the server; otherwise, an execution error will occur. See also Preparing Mappings for Server Execution.
Write directly to final output files: If the output file path contains folders that do not exist yet, an error will occur. This option overwrites any existing output files without requesting further confirmation.
•Display text in steps of N million characters: Specifies the maximum size of the text displayed in the Output pane when you preview mappings that generate large XML and text files. If the output text exceeds this value, you will need to click the Load more button to load the next chunk. For more information, see Preview and validate output.
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In the Editing section, you can define mapping view options:
•Align components on mouse dragging: Specify whether components or functions should be aligned with other components, while you drag them in the Mapping window. For more information, see Align Components.
•Smart component deletion: MapForce allows you to keep connections even after deleting some transformation components. Keeping connections might be particularly useful with multiple child connections, because you will not have to restore every single child connection manually after deleting a transformation component. For details, see Keep Connections after Deleting Components.
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The Messages section allows you to switch on message notifications such as suggesting connecting ancestor items, informing about the creation of multiple target components, and so on.
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The Generation section allows you to define settings for program-code generation and MapForce Server Execution files. For more information, see Code Generation, Generation, and Compiling Mappings to MapForce Server Execution Files.
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You may need to add a custom Java VM path, for example, if you are using a Java virtual machine which does not have an installer and does not create registry entries (e.g., Oracle's OpenJDK). You might also want to set this path if you need to override any Java VM path detected automatically by MapForce. For details, see Java.
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MapForce enables you to configure the following general (application-wide) XBRL settings:
•The label language of XBRL items and their annotations •The preferred label roles for XBRL item names •The specific type of label roles of annotations for XBRL items •Custom XBRL Taxonomy Packages
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In the Debugger section, you can define the following debugging settings:
•Maximum storage length of values: Defines the string length of values displayed in the Values window (at least 15 characters). Note that setting the storage length to a high value may deplete available system memory.
•Keep full trace history: Instructs MapForce to keep the history of all values processed by all connectors of all components in the mapping for the duration of debugging. If this option is enabled, all values processed since the beginning of debug execution will be stored in memory and available for your analysis in the Values window until you stop debugging. It is not recommended to enable this option if you are debugging data-intensive mappings, since it may slow down debugging execution and deplete available system memory. If this option is disabled, MapForce keeps only the most recent trace history for nodes related to the current execution position.
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In the Database section, you can define database query settings. For details, see Database Query Settings.
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The Network Proxy section enables you to configure custom proxy settings. These settings affect how the application connects to the Internet. By default, the application uses the system's proxy settings, so you should not need to change the proxy settings in most cases. For more details, see Network Proxy.
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MapForce provides Help (the user manual) in two formats:
•Online Help, in HTML format, which is available at the Altova website. In order to access the Online Help you will need Internet access. •A Help file in PDF format, which is installed on your machine when you install MapForce. It is named MapForce.pdf and is located in the application folder (in the Program Files folder). If you do not have Internet access, you can always open this locally saved Help fie.
The Help option (screenshot below) enables you to select which of the two formats is opened when you click the Help (F1) command in the Help menu.
You can change this option at any time for the new selection to take effect. The links in this section (see screenshot above) open the respective Help format.
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