Nutrition Planning and Tracking Program
Settings (Preferences)
The Settings dialog is invoked
using the Settings button on the
MainWindow.
Here you can set the following preferences:
Data File Path - by default, the data
files reside in the same directory as the Eatometer.exe executable program.
If you need to have these files located somewhere else use this setting
to do so. But before you do, you must manually copy all of the .slf
files and the masterdb.txt file into your new directory location. I recommend
using Windows Explorer to do this.
Warning: don't use this feature
unless you really understand it and really need to. Once you click
OK, if you have changed your path (directory, folder)
the program will first verify that the
database files are found there. If that checks out, the program will require you
to choose to either write your in-memory data to these files or load these
files into memory. This is required to "sync" the data. Choose your
option carefully.
Note: you cannot change your data path if there is more than one user
defined! You must perform this operation before setting up additional users.
Days to Retain - this setting is the
number of days of history that eaten foods are kept in the program database.
Eatometer uses flat files as opposed to a relational database, for simplicity
and speed. The program is not really designed to be an archive, typically
you would set this to a few days to a few weeks. Be aware that if
you make this a large number of days the program may respond a bit sluggishly
on certain operations.
Portions Spin Increment - When you
add an Eaten Item, the food you select will be of a specific measure, say
a cup or an ounce. The Portions field is where you enter the number
of portions you ate. This is a real number (can be fractional) so
if you selected an item with an amount of 1 cup, you could enter 0.5 to
specify that you ate a half cup. The Portions field starts at 1.0,
and you can click spin control (arrow) buttons to raise or lower it.
The value here is the increment/decrement used.
Implied Calories Warning Margin - this
value is the percentage of variation that is expected between the specified
and calculated caloric value. (See Food
Composition for more information). When saving an Eaten
food, Food Item or Import Item, these values are compared. If the
specified value differs by more than the percentage specified here, you
will be warned to double-check your entry. Set the number to 100%
if you don't want to use this feature. 20% is probably a good value in most
cases.
Main Program: Confirm Exit - Check this box if you want the program to
check to see if you are sure you want to exit the program.
Food Eaten Dialog: Automatically Pop Up Food Item List -
when you add an eaten item you will usually pick the food from your custom
My Foods list. If you check this box, the list will automatically pop up when
you enter the dialog, saving you a step in the process.
My Foods List: Auto Drop Category List
- if checked the Category selector box will drop automatically when the
Food Item dialog is brought up.
My Foods List: Set Focus to List -
will cause the program to place the keyboard focus on the list instead
of the category selector.
Daily Goals - set daily targets for
calories, protein, etc. if you wish to. If you leave a value set
to zero, the main window goal percentage graph will not display for that nutritional
element. Note that calories are a count, protein, carbs and fat are expressed
in grams, sodium and potassium/phosphorus in milligrams.
Click on Implied Calories to automatically synchronize the
calories in your goal setting to the implied value.
Maintenance Calories Calculator - this feature will calculate
the number of calories you need each day to maintain your weight. Look here
for information about the
Maintenance Calories Calculator.
Goal Calculator - click here to quickly calculate the quantities of
protein, carbohydrates and fat you need, based on calories and percentages
of each element. Read more about the
Goal Calculator.