These settings control how the program interacts with your system (for example replacing the default Windows Print screen function), as well as how the program will appear on your computer's desktop and respond to key presses. An exciting feature is the ability to control the program using Microsoft's Voice Command API. For a complete list of available voice commands, click here.

The second item on this menu is simply an "enable/disable" function. It does not load any dialogs, and its functionality is like that of a light switch, really. It's labeled Activate Hot Keys. If this menu has a check next to it, that instance of the program will respond to the appropriate hot keys as defined in the Configure hot keys dialog. If the menu item is un-checked, it means that hot key support for that HyperSnap-DX window isn't enabled.

There's a related toolbar button that serves the same purpose, too. This makes it easy to toggle "on and off" the hot key support. So if you need to use a program for a short period and that program has fixed hot keys, one of which conflicts with one of HyperSnap-DX's, you can disable hot keys, use the other program, close it and then with a single click, re-enable hot keys.

To locate this button, hover the mouse over the toolbar until you see Activate Hot Keys appear in the toolbar tip.

This section of help covers all of the Options menu functions with either a sub-topic accessed by a button, or by brief help right here.

A note about multiple instances:

if you run multiple instances of the program, only one copy can respond to hot key requests. So if you check this menu item (or depress the Activate hot keys toolbar button, or set that option to "on" from the Configure hot keys dialog) on instance number two (for example), instance number one will lose its ability to trigger captures from hot keys. You can toggle it back on again, but this will then disable hot keys on instance number two.

This makes sense if you think about it for a moment.

Activate Voice Commands - NUM Plus - like many powerful tools, HyperSnap-DX has voice command support. Check this to instruct HyperSnap-DX to enable control of the program through Microsoft™ speech recognition technology. This function allows you to capture (and manipulate images) using voice command technology. By speaking the name of a menu item you can activate that item, and thus use the program without keyboard or even mouse access in some cases.

Voice commands may not be available.

The Voice Command Interface (VCI) available in HyperSnap-DX and higher uses the Speech API 5 (SAPI5) programming interface. This interface is a standard component of Office XP and Windows XP. Users of earlier versions of Windows who'd like to use VCI will need to download the voice support components or order a CD from Microsoft and install the required files into their systems.

The minimum set of files necessary for VCI functionality to work in HyperSnap-DX is about 50 MB, so it's a long download, and if you're using a slow modem connection, ordering the CD may be better. DSL users probably won't be bothered by the large file size.

You might want to order our Hyperionics Download-Saver CD for $9.95 plus shipping, which contains both the SAPI5 Runtime and the latest versions of several Hyperionics software products (only fully released English language versions, there is no beta-test code on the CD-ROM). Visit www.hyperionics.com for more information about this.

To learn more about SAPI5, drop by Microsoft's speech technology web pages at: http://www.microsoft.com/speech.

Accessed by the button below is a complete list of available voice commands you can use from within HyperSnap-DX once this feature has been enabled, (and of course the required system components have been installed, too).

If several SAPI5 applications using a similar set of voice commands are running, you must proceed each command with "HyperSnap" to make sure that HyperSnap-DX gets the command. Otherwise your results may be unpredictable.

Control Mouse with Keyboard - this feature lets you drive the cursor for fine operations without using a mouse. You can effect mouse cursor control with only the keyboard. This gives you great pixel-level accuracy when you're drawing, copying, cutting or pasting images within the HyperSnap-DX window.

The following keys become active when the Control Mouse with Keyboard option is enabled:

Arrow keys - move cursor up, down, left or right by 1 pixel.

Tab - hide/show mouse cursor (when cursor obscures part of the drawing you need to see)

ENTER - simulates a left mouse button "down" function. When you press the ENTER key once, the mouse cursor blinks. This informs you that HyperSnap-DX thinks that you're pressing the left mouse button (for drawing, drag-drop operations etc.) even though you don't really have to press the left mouse button.

Now you can move the cursor using the mouse—or the arrow keys—to draw, select or drop what you need with great precision. The mouse is for large moves, and use the keyboard for very fine adjustments you may find difficult with the mouse or trackball. (Such as moving a cropping bounding box out by one pixel just to the right—something that's especially difficult with most mice.)

When you're done with the current function, press the ENTER key again to simulate "left button up" or click the left mouse button for the same thing.

Zoom in/out with CTRL key + mouse wheel - you can turn your mouse wheel (if your rodent has one) while holding the CTRL key to let you zoom in or out of an image. This works like the magnifying glass tool on the drawing toolbar.

Startup and Tray Icon - this sets options for how HyperSnap-DX shows its icon. You have several options for how the system handles the program, and how the program interacts with your operating system.

Check Auto-Start with Windows if you want HyperSnap-DX to always be available. If you've asked it to handle the Window print screen keys, you'll probably want this checked, too.

Check Always start minimized if you don't want to see the interface upon loading, but you want it available as an icon.

Display system tray icon, hide taskbar button when minimized sets the program to conserve space on your main icon taskbar by jumping over to the little rectangular tray area where the clock is. A related option, Do not exit when clicked on "Window Close" X button, prevents you from accidentally killing the program by clicking the X button. It's easy to do this when you really mean to minimize the program, so this is a good option to check,too.

Click OK to establish your startup and icon settings, or Cancel to abort.

Default Image Resolution - use this dialog to establish the default resolution used for captures. You can control the default settings here for all future captures. You also can override these settings during "custom" captures and change them post-capture with the image processing tools on the Image menu, too.

The setting here will be defined as your "starting" point. It defaults to the DPI of your system video driver.

Horizontal Resolution define a value here that provides you with the resolution you require for your application of most images. A good start for SVGA users (1024x768 pixels screen size) is 96 DPI. Users running less than SVGA should probably use 72 DPI.

Vertical Resolution is handled the same way as Horizontal, above, and the two should generally be equal to prevent distortion. However, in the case of your destination being a printer with "non-square" resolution (for example, 600 lines of Horizontal and 300 lines of Vertical) you could pick a non-square value for these two and you'd get good results, because they'd match the printer's capabilities.

Apply to the current image is simply a quick way of applying what you enter here to the image open in HyperSnap-DX at that time and then setting this as the starting values, too. You can also apply this using the Image menu item, Change resolution.

Use as default for future images captured from the screen sets the options you've defined here to be used from now on for all captures. You can override these during post processing if you desire, using the Image menu's tools.

Click on OK to complete your changes and set the values you've defined here.

Image Position and Background - allows you to select a Background Color and Hatch Color and pattern for the portion of HyperSnap-DX window that's not filled with a captured image. You can decide if you like the image positioned in the top left corner or centered, when the capture doesn't completely fill the application's window.

The background color and hatch values could be important when you want to test image transparency. On the Background Color button of the HyperSnap-DX drawing toolbar, you can select one color from the image and make it transparent, so that when an image is saved in GIF format (which supports transparencies) and is later displayed in a web browser window, the web page background will show through the image in places where the specified transparent color exists.

By changing the HyperSnap-DX image background here, you can thus test how this image will look on different colored or textured backgrounds, giving you a better feel for how it will appear on the destination web page when a reader views it.

Office XP Style allows you to toggle between an Office XP-like look for HyperSnap-DX's toolbars and menus, or a classic look for these items. Choose whatever style you like best. The change is immediate and doesn't require you to re-start the program.

Register File Types - this function allows you to set Windows so that when you double-click the selected file types listed here, the system will use HyperSnap-DX to open (and thus view or edit) those specific file types. This allows you to quickly choose which files are sent directly to HyperSnap-DX and which file types are edited or viewed by other graphics utilities you may have.

To have HyperSnap-DX be defined as the program to open (and thus view and edit) any of the listed files, simply check the box to the left of that file type. Once you've closed the dialog, the selected types will be registered with the system as HyperSnap-DX files. The setting change takes place immediately.

Available types the program can associate itself with include: BMP and DIB, GIF, JPEG/JPG, TIFF/TIF, PNG, LEAD (CMP), TARGA (TGA), and WPG (Word Perfect Graphics format). There are two other options to set on this dialog.

Open each file in the same window causes HyperSnap-DX to re-use its currently-open (or first-opened) window rather than opening multiple incidences of itself.

Open each file in a new window causes HyperSnap-DX to open as many incidences of its main window as you need to view the files you are double-clicking.