12 Preferences
With the preferences dialog application wide settings can be defined and the behavior of MIB Designer can be customized. The individual settings are described in the following sections. By pressing the Save button any changes made to the preferences will be applied (except Look&Feel changes) and MIB Designer will then scan the MIB repository for available MIB modules. You can continue work while scanning or close the progress dialog if you do not want to wait until the scan is finished.
The general preferences section provides three sections for MIB compiler, MIB generation, and other settings.
The number of errors recorded during MIB compilation for each MIB file can be limited by the setting. If a MIB module contains more than the specified number of errors, those additional errors will not be displayed until either one of the displayed errors get fixed or the value is increased.
The MIB Generation settings define how MIB modules are generated from the data imported into MIB Designer and/or entered in the same.
Generate MIB Designer Comments - Adds ASN.1 comments for object identifiers and UTC time values to generated MIB modules. This option makes the MIB modules more readable and it is recommended to activate this option.
Generate OID Comments Inline - In order to save output lines, the OID comments can be generated into the same line where the OID value assignment is placed. Activating this option can lead to interoperability problems with third party MIB compilers that cannot handle ASN.1 comment closing correctly.
Automatically Import SMI Macros - Imports SMI macros like OBJECT-TYPE, OBJECT-GROUP, etc. automatically from the appropriate MIB modules, when a MIB module is checked or saved.
Preserve Original Order of Imported Objects - Preserves the order of MIB objects in a compiled MIB module file, when it is regenerated. Subsequently added objects will be placed at the end of the MIB module.
Order Generated Objects by Type First - Ensures that the objects are ordered by their type first. Within each category the order is determined by an eventually enabled preserve option (above) and the lexicographic ordering of the object’s OID. The order of object type categories is as follows:
MODULE-IDENTITY
TEXTUAL-CONVENTION
OBJECT-IDENTIFIER, OBJECT-TYPE, OBJECT-IDENTITY
TRAP-TYPE, NOTIFICATION-TYPE
OBJECT-GROUP
NOTIFICATION-GROUP
MODULE-COMPLIANCE
AGENT-CAPABILITIES
Open MIB in New Pane - When enabled, new MIB modules are opened in a new pane, otherwise they will be opened in the current pane if available.
Revision control - Enables revision control, which prevents accidentally modification of already released MIB objects (see section MIB Maintenance and Revision Control).
Warn for Unsaved Changes - Warns if a changed MIB module is closed or if MIB Designer is closed while there are changed MIB modules.
Warn before overwriting files - Warns if MIB Designer tries to overwrite an existing file.
The Repository setting defines the directory to store compiled MIB modules, see also section “Creating a MIB Repository” on page 6.
Compress compiled MIB modules in repository - When this option is selected (default), the compiled MIB modules will be GZIP compressed stored in the MIB repository to save disk space. When you share the MIB repository with AgenPro prior to v2.5 or MIB Explorer prior to v2.5, then deactivate this option, in order to be able to read it with those tools.
The Look & Feel setting determines the overall appearance of MIB Designer. There are several built-in look and feels that you can choose from. MIB Designer needs to be restarted before changes will take effect.
Use SMI object type specific icons - When activated (default), the node icons displayed in the MIB tree reflect the type of the SMI object represented by the node. See also “MIB-Tree Colors and Icons” on page 33. When deactivated, the tree icons of the current look&feel are used.
Font size of preview text - With the slider you can specify the relative font size for the SMI preview window.
Use n spaces instead of tabs - When displaying and exporting MIB files tabulators are used by default to indent text. Instead of using tabulators, the specified number of spaces can be used for indentation.
In order to be able to enhance the built-in dictionary, you will have to specify a custom dictionary which can be any new file.
For new object creation, default values can be specified for common attributes of SMI objects. Specifying a default value can ease object creation. Default values can be specified for the following attributes:
Object name - Defines the default object name for new objects. It is recommended to set this value to the mnemonic of your company or organization. You will then only have to append the individual object name when creating new objects.
OID increment - Some organizations prefer to leave holes in object numbering to be able to insert objects at later time (otherwise they could only be appended on the same level). The default is 1 which leaves no holes.
Syntax - The default syntax should be set to the syntax of the majority of your MIB objects to facilitate editing, for example OCTET-STRING.
Access - The default access for new OBJECT-TYPE definitions.
The syntax highlighting settings defines if and with which colors SMI text is to be highlighted by the MIB file editor and when MIB modules are printed or exported to PDF.
Print colored - If checked, syntax highlighted text is printed with the colors defined in “Syntax Highlighting” preferences. Otherwise only the text styles defined therein are used.
Print header - Prints the MIB module name as header.
Print footer - Prints footer with print date and page number.
Print line number - Prints line numbers.