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Monitor Customization


Overview

There are a few ways you can customize the look and feel of the Monitor on your machine. All panels within the Monitor can be resized, toolbars and columns can be toggled from the View menu, and even the Monitor colors can be customized. This guide covers the different ways you can customize your Monitor to suit your needs.

Monitor Layout Presets

You can use the Layout option in the Main toolbar to save the current Monitor layout or switch to existing ones. You can toggle the visibility of the Main toolbar from the View menu.

Settings that are saved with the layout include:

  • The size, location, and visibility of all panels. The visibility of the panels can be toggled from the View menu.
  • The width and visibility of all column headers. The column headers can be configured from the View menu. On Windows, they can also be customized by right-clicking on the column headers in each list.
  • The Job and Slave list filters. You can toggle the visibility of these toolbars from the View menu.
  • The Monitor options that are documented below.

Monitor Options

The Monitor options can be accessed from the Monitor by selecting Tools -> Options.

The Monitor options are as follows:

  • Image Viewer (for viewing images from the tasks list):
    • Custom Image Viewer Executables: You can enter up to three viewers to use to view output images from the tasks list.
    • Preferred Image Viewer: The viewer that will be used by default. This can either be the output image's default viewer, or one of the custom viewers.
  • Remote Monitoring:
    • Custom Radmin Viewer Executable: The path to the Radmin viewer executable you want to use. If left blank, the executable specified in the repository options will be used.
    • Custom VNC Viewer Arguments: Arguments to be used when running the custom VNC viewer. See the Remoting section of the Repository Options documentation for more information.
    • Custom VNC Viewer Executable: The path to the VNC viewer executable you want to use. If left blank, the executable specified in the repository options will be used.
    • Default Remote Connection App: The default remote connection application to use when double-clicking in the slave list, task list, etc, providing that it is enabled in the Repository Options.
  • Start Up:
    • Completed Job Warning Days: A warning will be shown at startup when you have completed jobs older than this many days. Specify 0 to disable this feature.
    • Start In Super User Mode: If true, the Monitor will start-up in Super User mode. If a password is required, you will be prompted for the password.
  • User Interface:
    • Allow Drag & Drop Job Dependencies: If set to True, you can set job dependencies by using drag & drop in the job list.
    • Auto Refresh Period: The amount of time that will elapse between automatic Monitor refreshes.
    • Histogram Type: The type of histogram to show for the Task render time, CPU usage, and memory usage statistics.
    • Line Numbers In Report Viewers: If enabled, line numbers will be shown in the error, log, and requeue report viewers. Note though that large reports can impact the scrolling of the report viewers.
    • Maintain List Selection After Refresh: If True, the current selection in the lists in the Monitor (Jobs, Slaves, etc) will be maintained after refreshes.
    • Slave Ping Timeout: Set the timeout (in milliseconds) when pinging slave machines during a refresh.
    • Task Double-Click Action:
      • Automatic: Double clicking a task will VNC into the slave if the task is rendering. If the task is complete, the image for that task will be displayed if it exists.
      • RemoteConnectSlave: Double clicking a task will remote into the slave that is rendering or has rendered the task.
      • ViewImage: Double clicking a task will display the image for that task if it exists.
    • Transparent Filter Windows: If enabled, the filter window in the Monitor will be transparent. There are known issues with using the feature over a VNC connection.
    • Use 24 Hour Clock: Whether or not the times in the jobs list will be displayed using a 24 hour clock.
    • Use Time Format 00h00m00s: If true, times will be displayed in the Monitor as "00h 00m 00s", otherwise they will be displayed as "00:00:00".

Themes

Deadline allows you to customize the color scheme of the Monitor and the other Deadline applications running on your machine. So if you don't like the default color scheme, you can switch to one of the existing themes, or you can create your own! The theme editing window can be opened from the Monitor by selecting Tools -> Edit Themes.

Changing Themes

In addition to the DEFAULT theme, Deadline ships with other themes, which can be selected in the Current Theme drop down. An example of what the selected theme will look like is shown in the panel on the right. Once you are satisfied with the selected them, click OK.

After clicking OK, you will probably notice that only some areas of the Monitor have refreshed properly. To quickly refresh everything, simply minimize and maximize the Monitor. You may also notice that the text in the lists haven't refreshed either. To refresh the text, select File -> Change Repository, and then simply press OK on the window that pops up. This will reconnect you to your current repository, and refresh everything correctly.

In order to refresh the other Deadline applications, they will need to be restarted.

Editing Themes

If none of the included themes work for you, you can tweak them or create your own. To start, you should probably create an entry for your new theme. To do this, click the Save As button and save your theme to a new file. For this example, we'll use the name MyTheme.

Now that we've saved MyTheme, we can select it in the Current Theme drop down.

Now in the properties box, you can start editing your theme. To see a description of each property, just hover the mouse cursor of the property name. As you edit your theme, you can look at the panel on the right to see an example of how your theme will look.

Once you are satisfied with your theme, click the Save button to save it. If you don't save your theme, your theme settings will only persist for this session. After saving your theme, click OK.

After clicking OK, you will probably notice that only some areas of the Monitor have refreshed properly. To quickly refresh everything, simply minimize and maximize the Monitor. You may also notice that the text in the lists haven't refreshed either. To refresh the text, select File -> Change Repository, and then simply press OK on the window that pops up. This will reconnect you to your current repository, and refresh everything correctly. In order to refresh the other Deadline applications, they will need to be restarted.