MuffinTerm • Help • User Preferences

Preferences

The preferences interface lets you configure various options to tailor MuffinTerm to your liking. Most options are common to both the macOS and the iOS/iPadOS versions; the few that are platform-specific are noted below.

You can open the preferences interface using the standard ⌘, (Command-comma) keyboard shortcut. On macOS, you can also use the MuffinTerm → Prefences… menu command (renamed to Settings… on macOS 13); on iOS, you can tap the gear button in the button bar.

Terminal-related options

Default background color — Select whether the terminal should use a blue or a black background color by default. (The title screen will always use a blue background.) This option is only relevant when a color video mode is in use; see the terminal page for more about video modes. In VIC-II video modes, the default text color will be light blue when a blue background is selected, to match the traditional startup colors of the C64 system.

Note that when you connect to a BBS using ANSI or PETSCII terminal emulation, the colors will be reset to grey on black, regardless of this setting; colors will revert to your preferred default after you hang up. (The default colors are always used whenever connecting in TTY or Raw mode.)

Use audible bell — When enabled, an incoming bell character (0x07) will make an audible beep, like the traditional system beep on PCs. When this option is disabled (or if your device is muted), a bell character will make no sound.

Use visual bell — When enabled, an incoming bell character will cause the terminal window to briefly “flash.” This can be useful as an alternative to audible cues.

You can have both audible and visual bell alerts enabled at the same time, if desired. You can also disable them both if you prefer that bell characters be ignored entirely.

Reset terminal on new connection — This option will cause the screen to be cleared and terminal attributes to be reset to default values when connecting to a BBS. This can be helpful in case a previous connection left the text attributes set to weird colors, etc. (You can also manually reset the terminal at any time; see the terminal page for details.)

Ignore PETSCII case lock — PETSCII terminals have two separate character sets (uppercase/“graphics” and lowercase/“business”). A BBS can tell the terminal to switch between these, but the user can also switch them at any time (see the terminal page for details). There is also a pair of PETSCII control characters to lock the case, preventing the user from switching to the opposite character set. Normally a BBS will use the case lock to ensure that the user doesn’t accidentally switch to the wrong case; but sometimes you might want to switch it anyway. This preference allows you to override the case lock, if you wish.

Send ESC when backtick key (`) is pressed — When enabled, this will cause an ASCII Escape character (0x1B) to be sent instead of a backtick when that key is pressed. This is mostly for use with iPad keyboards and certain Touch Bar models of MacBooks, which lack a physical ESC key; this option makes it easier to send an ESC on such devices. (The ESC key is most commonly located near the backtick key on English-language keyboards, thus the choice of backtick for the substitution.)

File-related options

Automatically open log on new connection — When enabled, MuffinTerm will automatically open a new log file whenever you connect to a BBS. (You can still manually open or close log files when desired, regardless of this setting.) On macOS, you must select a log file location before you can enable this option.

Save raw log files — This will cause a second, unfiltered and untranslated log file to be saved alongside the regular plain-text log whenever logging is enabled. (See the log files page for details.) On macOS, you must select a log file location before you can enable this option.

Log and copy using Unicode 13.0 — The PETSCII and ATASCII character sets include glyphs that were not added to the Unicode standard until Unicode 13.0 in 2020. Although MuffinTerm can copy, paste, and save these glyphs to a log file using Unicode 13, if you don’t have a font that supports these mappings, then you’ll see a bunch of empty boxes or other “unknown character” glyphs in your log files instead of the expected symbols. MuffinTerm can optionally map these glyphs to the closest approximations that appeared in older Unicode standards, so that log files and copied text will be readable with regular system fonts. Note that this only affects log files and text that you copy or log from a PETSCII or ATASCII terminal; the glyphs will always appear correctly within MuffinTerm itself, regardless of this setting.

Download file location (macOS only) — On macOS, you’ll need to select a location for downloading files, as part of the sandbox security model. (If you try to download a file without having set a location, then you’ll be prompted to select a location at that time.) MuffinTerm will remember the last location that you selected, so you only need to set this up once (unless you change your mind about where to save files).

Log file location (macOS only) — As with downloads, you’ll need to select a location for saving log files before logging can be enabled.

Export dialing directory data — Selecting this button lets you export a human-readable JSON archive of your dialing directory data, including all BBSes, favorites, notes, and call history. You can use this as a backup of your data, or to synchronize between your devices if you don’t have (or don’t want to use) iCloud. For more details, see the dialing directory documentation. Note: If you want to export your dialing directory to share it with others, see the archive converter page.

Sticky note options

Use handwriting font — This toggles between using a handwriting-style font and a monospaced font for the sticky notes. A handwriting font looks more like a physical sticky note (well, depending on your handwriting), but a monospaced font might be easier to read for some users. (The actual text of the notes is unaffected and can be edited, copied, pasted, etc. regardless of this setting.)

Paper color for global sticky note — Selects from among several paper colors to set the color used for the global sticky note (i.e., the one shared between all BBSes). This is a purely visual effect; the text of the note is unaffected.

Default color for per-BBS notes — As with the global note, you can select a paper color for per-BBS notes. This option sets the color used for any BBS whose note is not explicitly set to a specific color (which you can do via the dialing directory entry for a given BBS).

Other options

Enable automatic ZMODEM transfers — When enabled, MuffinTerm will watch for specific byte sequences that indicate the start of a ZMODEM file transfer (whether uploading or downloading). Most BBSes support ZMODEM, and it is frequently the default file transfer protocol, so this option can be useful for streamlining file transfer operations. For more details, see the file transfer documentation.

Sync dialing directory via iCloud — If you’re logged in to an iCloud account on your device, you can choose to keep your BBS list, favorites, and call history synchronized between devices. This uses a small amount of space out of your iCloud Drive quota (typically a few tens of kilobytes per device). If you log out of iCloud or disable iCloud Drive access to MuffinTerm in the system’s global System Preferences, then this option will be unavailable. If you disable this preference, then the sync data for this device will be removed locally and from iCloud (if you’re still logged in to iCloud at the time).

Non-TELNET detection threshold — Some BBSes are listed online as running TELNET, but do not in fact implement the underlying TELNET protocol. (Often this occurs when a system is running on vintage hardware, piped directly to a network connection without a full TELNET server.) This can lead to problems such as a failure to properly negotiate the local echo mode, various file transfer errors, etc. You can use this option to enable MuffinTerm to detect non-TELNET connections and automatically switch them to plain TCP connections when possible. Normally, a TELNET server will send TELNET commands and reply to MuffinTerm’s own initial commands at the start of a connection, or shortly thereafter. If MuffinTerm sees no replies or commands after a certain number of bytes, it will assume that the remote host is not actually running TELNET and will switch to TCP mode. This setting can be set to various values between 125 and 2,000 bytes, indicating how long to wait before assuming non-TELNET mode (or set to “disabled” to turn off the feature entirely).

macOS-specific options

Show modem lights — If enabled, a set of virtual modem lights will be shown in the title bar of each terminal window. (See the interface page for details.)

Default file transfer protocol — This selects the protocol that will be used if you use a keyboard shortcut to start a transfer. (You can always initiate a transfer using a specific protocol via the Console →Upload or Download menus.) iOS lacks this option due to interface differences; you’re always prompted for which protocol to use on that platform.

iOS/iPadOS-specific options

Use block cursor — Choose whether the cursor should be block style (a full character-sized block) or underline style. On macOS, this is a per-window setting selected via the Console → Cursor Style menu.

Prevent device sleep — When this option is enabled, MuffinTerm will prevent your device from automatically sleeping/locking the screen, even if you’re idle for an extended time, as long as you’re connected to a BBS. (Your device will still auto-sleep if MuffinTerm is in the background or if you aren’t connected to a BBS.)

Show extra input keys — Enabling this option adds a row of special keys above the system’s regular on-screen keyboard, or at the bottom of the screen if you have a hardware keyboard attached. These extra keys allow for easy input of Escape, Tab, and arrow keys, as well as a way to type Control codes without needing a physical keyboard. This option is enabled by default on iPhone, and is disabled by default on iPad (where users are more likely to be using a folio keyboard or other external keyboard); but you can enable or disable it at any time, regardless of device type.

Shake to reset — If enabled, this causes the terminal to reset when you shake your device. (You can always reset it manually, regardless of this setting; see the terminal page.)

Application icon — You can select an icon for MuffinTerm on your device, from among several designs inspired by dial-up modems from years past (and a couple based on floppy disks). Pick the one that reminds you most of your BBS experience! :)