Preferences may be set from within Arboreal via a dialog (File/Preferences). Changes go into effect immediately; there is no need to restart Arboreal.^[1] The preferences dialog looks like this:

"General" tab

N.B.: Brief explanations of the settings are provided by tooltips that appear if you move the mouse over the field labels.

• Font name: the font to use (e.g., Arial Unicode MS); size: the default font size (in points), for text in both the tree and the content pane (defaults to 14).

• Script base: the base URL for the dictionary and server-based term facilities; use http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/ to access the the Harvard server, or use http://localhost/cgi-bin/ if you've installed the dictionary facility locally.

• Default catalog: if this is set, Arboreal will load the specified catalog file at startup. Catalog files may always be loaded manually with File/Load catalog.
• Default language: the language assumed as the default for documents where no language is specified explicitly. See further language documentation).

"Colors" tab

Colors for various types of highlighting can be chosen interactively with a color picker.

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1. Preferences are stored in the properties.xml file in the arboreal directory: i.e., the directory called arboreal or .arboreal in your home directory. (On single-user Windows platforms your "home directory" is normally considered to be C:\WINDOWS.)