The Preferences Window is brought up by selecting Preferences… from the Edit Menu. It looks like this:
 
The Preferences Window allows you to set various MacRTrace options which will carry over from session to session. The options are:
  Allow background tasks
When this option is checked, MacRTrace will act like a “nice” Macintosh application, and will give some of its time to any programs running in the background. The exact amount of time it will give depends on the value of the number below, which is in 1/60 second intervals. In the above case, MacRTrace will stop every 30 intervals (every half second) to give up a little time to background programs, and to check for any events (like abort). Disabling it will cause MacRTrace to run “blind”; it will not stop for anything until it is done with it’s task. When this option is disabled, MacRTrace runs significantly faster. However, it is not possible to do anything else when MacRTrace is in this mode, and it is not possible to abort a render.
  Show image as it is rendered
When this option is checked on, the Image Window will automatically be made visible each time a render begins.
  Show Status window for each render
When this option is checked on, the Status Window is shown each time a render begins. Turning this off and hiding the Status Window will speed things up a bit, since drawing all the status information takes time.
  Hide Options window during each rendering
When this option is checked on, the Options Window is hidden each time a render begins. This may help to prevent clutter, since the Options Window is usually not needed while an image is rendering.
  Show About window at program startup
When this option is checked on, the About Window is shown each time MacRTrace is launched.
  Use Textures
This checkbox and the associated radio controls let you specify where the texture information appears in the scene description (.sff) file. There may be either no textures, or textures defined inside the objects field, or textures defined after the objects field. If you try to read a file with the wrong texture format, MacRTrace will generate an error. In that case, just change this option and try again. Texture mapping is quite slow, so you should only use it on final renders. Currently, we only support .ppm format for image textures so you will need to convert PICT files to .ppm in order to use them in image texture mapping. Note that this parameter affects how MacRTrace reads a scene, so if this is changed after a scene has been read, MacRTrace will automatically reread the scene.
  Max Objects
  Max Lights
  Max Surfaces
  Max CSG Levels
These options let you change the maximum number of objects, lights, surface, and levels of CSG objects which are allowed in a scene file. Note that all these parameters affects how MacRTrace reads a scene, so if any one is changed after a scene has been read, MacRTrace will automatically reread the scene.
