The Preferences Dialog is accessible via the "Preferences" item of the "Speed Download" menu.

Speed Download's preferences are stored in the "com.yazsoft.SpeedDownload.plist" file in the preferences folder of your Home directory. Preferences are divided into 16 sections.

A discussion of each option follows.

General | My Downloads | My Uploads | Plugin | Queue | File Sharing | Passwords

Filters | Sensitive Servers | Connection | iTunes Integration | Safari Integration | Floater

Interface | Dock | Advanced | Security

General

The General section is the one which appears below. The preferences that are set here are:

• Setup type: this is where you choose how you would like to use Speed Download. With 'Automatic', SD automatically intercepts all files you are trying to download. It is the method we recommend for optimal use. Regardless, if you would like to control what SD downloads, simply pick 'Manual'. Under 'Manual' mode, files are sent to SD via the contextual menu, or by simply dragging and dropping a file URL onto the Speed Download window, or the Floater.
• Check for updates on startup: checks for a newer version of Speed Download. It is very important to understand that Speed Download never installs spyware on your machine, and this mechanism of checking if you have the latest version of Speed Download is by no means any form of spyware. What this does is check for updates on startup: we don't even send the current version number that you are running to our servers; instead, we simply download a text file which has the version number of the latest version, which we then compare with the version that you are currently running.
• Hide main window on startup: This setting starts up Speed Download with the main window hidden. To show the main window again, simply select 'Toggle Queue Window' from the 'Window' main menu.
• Use error log: When this option is on error messages will not be shown for most errors. They will be put in an error log that you may look at by choosing "View Log" from the "File" menu. This log is saved to disk, but the error log window will only show messages from the current session. Errors (as well some other messages) are recorded in the log regardless of this settings.
• Reconnect to servers from My Servers on startup: SD will automatically reconnect to any servers that you have saved as favorites in the 'My Servers' section and that you were connected to before quitting SD.
• Encrypt passwords stored in the queue file: for security, all passwords to servers that you access via Speed Download are encrypted.
• Enable Path Finder support: if you are using Path Finder to replace the Mac OS X Finder, this setting will make the 'Reveal in Finder' function work properly with Path Finder. Note, if you're not using Path Finder, leave this unchecked.
• Show invisible files on FTP servers and iDisks: self explanatory.
• When Speed Download needs your attention: you can opt to have SD bounce once or continuously in the dock if it needs your attention.
• Post Process Downloads with these types: When this option is on, any file extension listed will be post-processed. For example, if you download a Stuffit Archive (a .sit file), Stuffit Expander™ will launch and decompress the file. You select what file extensions you would like SD to post process.

My Downloads

The My Downloads section looks like this:

The preferences that are set here are:

• Download location: this is where Speed Download will download all files by default.
• Always prompt for a download location: when this option is checked on, SD will always ask you where you want to save each file you download.
• Retry downloads automatically: SD will keep retrying to download a file until it is complete or until you manually abort the download.
• Remove finished downloads from the queue right away: self explanatory.
• Switch to My Downloads when a download is added: SD will automatically switch to the 'My Downloads' section whenever a new file is added to the queue for immediate downloading.
• Bring Speed Download to the front when a download is added: will make SD the active application and bring it to the front whenever a new file is added to the queue for immediate downloading.
• Confirm before clearing folders: Speed Download will display a warning message before clearing the content(s) of a folder list you have created.
• Clear Cancelled Downloads when quitting: self explanatory.
• Clear Finished Downloads when quitting: self explanatory.
• Play sound when a download finishes: self explanatory.
• Play sound when all downloads have finished: self explanatory.
• When downloads are completed: customize what you would like SD to do when your downloads have completed.

My Uploads

The My Uploads section looks like this:

The preferences that are set here are:

• Clear Cancelled Uploads when quitting: self explanatory.
• Clear Finished Uploads when quitting: self explanatory.
• Prompt to cancel file transfers to a host when disconnecting from it.: If checked on, SD will ask you each time you disconnect from another SD machine if you simply which to disconnect or disconnect and cancel all active uploads to that machine as well. Note: you can disconnect from a machine but leave the active uploads to it on.
• Cancel uploads to a host when disconnecting from it.: If checked on, SD will automatically disconnect and cancel all active uploads to that machine without prompting you.

Plugin

The Plugin section looks like this:

The preferences that are set here are:

• Plugin 'goes back' after downloading: after a file is sent to SD for downloading, SD will automatically take you back to the last page you were on, in your browser.
• The rest of this section is for deciding what file extensions you would like SD to automatically download. You can easily add, delete, and edit any file extension here.

Queue

The Queue section looks like this:

The preferences that are set here are:

• My Downloads Queue
• Start download queue at application launch: If this option is on, Speed Download will automatically start the download queue when you launch SD.
• Only if connected: This option works with the "Start download queue at application launch" option. When it is on and the "Start download queue on application launch"  is on, the queue will only be started at application launch if a Internet connection is already established. If you have a modem, you might find this useful to avoid Speed Download automatically causing a dial-up.
• Stop Downloads when queue stops: When this option is on, when the queue is stopped (either manually, by the user or because it was scheduled) all active downloads are stopped. If this option is off and if you stop the queue, no new downloads will be started by the queue but downloads that had already started will be allowed to continue.
• Plugin may start queue: If this option is on, when you add a file to the download queue using the contextual menu plug-in, the download queue will automatically be started so that the added file will get downloaded.
• Limt items displayed in History to:: Speed Download will keep the all or the last 'X' downloaded items stored in the History section.
• Concurrent downloads the queue may start: The number of simultaneous downloads that can occur. For unregistered users, this is fixed to 2.
  


• My Uploads Queue
• Start upload queue at application launch: If this option is on, Speed Download will automatically start the upload queue when you launch SD.
• Only if connected: This option works with the "Start upload queue at application launch" option. When it is on and the "Start upload queue at application launch"  is on, the queue will only be started at application launch if a Internet connection is already established. If you have a modem, you might find this useful to avoid Speed Download automatically causing a dial-up.
• Stop Uploads when queue stops: When this option is on, when the queue is stopped all active uploads are stopped. If this option is off and if you stop the queue, no new uploads will be started by the queue but uploads that had already started will be allowed to continue.
• Concurrent uploads the queue may start: The number of simultaneous uploads that can occur.
  

File Sharing

The File Sharing section looks like this:

• Received Files location: this is where you can all files that other SD users transfer to you will be saved.
• Enable sharing: this is where you can decide whether you want to share your custom created folders with others. You can also set what port you would like Speed Download to listen on. If you are behind a firewall, make sure that you open the TCP/IP port you specify in this field. If you want to allow file transfers as well, you should also open the port entered in that field +1 (i.e. 2551 by default).
• Enable local Bonjour sharing: quickly find other SD users on your local network.
• Enable Guest Access: self explanatory.
• User management: allows you to manage who connects to you and what their connection rights are. Enabling 'Download' allows that user to download a file from your machine onto their machine. File Transfer requires the 'Upload' to be turned on.
• SD lets you control how many simultaneous downloads and uploads are allowed from your machine. As well, SD allows you to set the bandwidth limit on your downlaoding and uploading (file transfers) so that it doesn't end up using all your bandwidth if many users are connected to your machine.
• Disable unecrypted transfers: if you always want to transfer files to other SD users securely and away from prying eyes, check this option. It will not allow SD to transfer any files unless a secure connection can be made.

Passwords

The Passwords section looks like this:

• Here you can manually add and/or edit username/password information for servers that require authentication in order to let you download.
• In the passwords section you can use the * character as a wildcard. For example, information entered for *.domain.com will be used for www.domain.com, members.domain.com, etc. If there is specific entry for a site in that domain, then this overrides the previous setting, for example, an entry for members2.domain.com takes precedence over the entry *.domain.com.

Filters

The Filters section looks like this:

Here you can decide how SD organizes the files you download. For example, if you create a folder name 'Applications' and you put in '.sit' in the 'Extensions to Match' section, then every file you download that ends with the .sit extension will be automatically placed inside the 'Applications' folder which will automatically be created for you in the download location set in the 'General' section of the preferences.

Multiple extensions for the same folder name can be specified. They simply need to be separated by a semicolon ' ; '.

Sensitive Servers

The Sensitive Servers section looks like this:

The following options are set here:

• Any server domain (i.e. www.site.com) added in the first part of this preference window will only get 1 connection from SD when downloading from it. This feature is extremely useful when downloading from older and/or slower servers that cannot handle fast or multiple connections. As well, you can set the maximum files to download at the same time, from these domains.
• The second part of this preference window allows you to set different maximum simultaneous downloads for each domain listed.

Connection

The Connection section looks like this:

The following options are set here:

• Default number of connections: The default number of simultaneous connections that will be used for downloads. You may ask for a specific number of connections when you add the download to the queue. Speed Download suggests a default value of 5. The maximum is 32. However, unless you have particular reasons to do so, little is gained by setting this above 10. Setting this too high will increase the load on the servers you download from and increase memory usage.
• Anonymous ftp password: Anonymous ftp servers often ask for an email address as a password. The address entered here is used for this purpose.
• User-Agent: This is what identifies you to the server that you are connecting (i.e. downloading a file) from. For example, if you set the User-Agent to Internet Explorer, the server that you are connecting to will think that you are using Internet Explorer to download. This feature is here in order to maximize compatibility with most servers out there.
• Enable bandwidth throttle: limit the bandwidth that SD uses if you find that its affecting other web activities (i.e. web surfing) while a download is taking place.
• Connection Type: pick from a default set of Internet connections; SD will fill in your Connection speed for that connection. You can always edit this field.
• Limit bandwidth usage to whatever amount of the connection speed.

iTunes Integration.

The iTunes Integration. section looks like this:

• This section is self explanatory.

Safari Integration.

The Safari Integration. section looks like this:

• This section only applies to Apple's Safari browser. Any domain added to the this section will be automatically bypassed by Speed Download and downloaded by Safari's built-in download manager instead. This feature is useful in the case of problematic servers,or simply if you wish to troubleshoot certain servers.
• Completely disable browser plug-in in Safari: will disable SD and use Safari's built-in download manager all the time.
• Any settings in this section take effect right away. You do not need to restart Safari.

Floater

The Floater section looks like this:

Interface

The Interface section looks like this:

• Here, you can enable/disable any of the SD interface items and totally customize the look of Speed Download.

Dock

The Dock section looks like this:

• This section allows you to customize what information is displayed in the Speed Download icon located in your dock.
• You can also customize the background colors of the bandwidth usage in the dock to match any background you may have on your Mac.

Security

The Security section looks like this:

• By default, Speed Download will always try to establish a secure and encrypted connection. It does so by creating FingerPrint keys for the hosts that you connect to. The security section of the preferences is where you can manage those keys.

Advanced

The Advanced section looks like this:

• Install Plug-in in /Library: this installs Speed Download for all users on the machine. This feature will only work when activated by an administrator. Otherwise, nothing will happen. To undo the effect of this, please follow the instructions written on the preference pane itself (see above).