Setting up preferences

Tools › Preferences, or Ctrl+P. Six tabs. Defaults at the bottom resets everything.

General

Compress database on exit	Rebuilds the collection file every time you close the program. Keeps it tidy; makes closing slower. See Compressing the database.
Show splash screen on startup	The picture while the program loads.
Check for updates weekly	Looks for a new version once a week at startup.
Multiple movie selection	Lets you select several movies at once. Needed for group editing, playlists and copying files.
Assign Movie number automatically	Fills Movie number with the first free number on every new card.
Loan entire media	Lending and returning work on the whole disc: everything with the same Media label goes together.
Delete video file upon movie deletion	Deleting a movie deletes its video file too. Off by default, and worth leaving off.
Batch screenshot capture	When a movie is added from a file, grab a set of frames automatically. You set how many, and whether they are taken at random or at equal intervals.
Automatic multilevel backup	How many copies, how many days apart, and where. See Making a backup.

Dark theme	Dark palette for the whole interface.
Scale	Size of the movie card. Same as `Ctrl`+`Num +` and `Ctrl`+`Num -` in the main window.
Movie list font	Font and size of the list and the tree.
Additional columns	Which fields appear as columns in the list, and in what order.
Display the original movie title	Original titles in the list instead of local ones.
Display movie list on the top	List across the top, card below, instead of side by side. `Ctrl`+`Z` does the same.
Stars rating	Stars instead of numbers.
Full-size cover	Show the cover at its real size rather than fitted.
Display alternative person's names	Show a person's second name where the database has one.
Show the actors in the columns	Cast as a table with roles rather than a comma-separated line.
Hide toolbar	Removes the toolbar from the main window.
Thumbnails mode	Size of the cover thumbnails, and Rebuild to regenerate them.

Eighteen interface languages; the change applies at once.

Default database	Which source is queried when you press `Enter` in the title field: TheMovieDB.org, KinoPoisk.ru, TheTVDB.com, Moviemeter.nl or FilmWeb.pl.
Check the usable online databases	Untick the ones you never use and they stop cluttering the source list.
Import screenshots	Download additional images along with the movie details.
Get more details	Open extra pages per film for a fuller cast and crew. Noticeably slower.
Resize massive images	Shrink oversized downloads so they fit the layout and do not bloat the database.
Proxy server configuration	Address, and a login and password if the proxy needs them.

Two kinds of field of your own.

Text fields — extra fields on the movie card: “Bought at”, “Region”, “Edition”. Add and Delete maintain the list. Field names must use Latin letters and digits; deleting a field deletes the data in it.
Personal marks — tags, with an optional highlight colour. Highlight marked movies paints them in the list, at a small cost in speed.

The same tab holds Default DVD/Blu-ray drive, which is the drive Add DVD looks at.

Sensible defaults; change them deliberately.

Store all the images inside the database	On, everything is in one file. Off, images live in a folder beside it and the file stays small. Switching converts the existing collection. The important one when the database approaches 2 GB.
Check for duplicate titles when adding a new movie	Warns when a title already exists. Slows saving slightly.
Assign the maximum movie number instead of the first free one	Never reuse a number left free by a deleted movie.
Do not use drop-down values for custom fields	Speeds up the Custom fields tab on a large collection.
Move articles to the end of the title	The Terminator becomes Terminator, The for sorting. Existing titles can be converted.
Do not start playback by double-clicking	Double-click opens the movie card instead of playing the film.
Use low resolution for the screenshot previews	Much faster browsing of cards with many high-resolution screenshots.
Use a relative path for the video located in the folder below	Store video paths relative to a root folder, so the collection survives the drive letter changing.
Password protection of database changes	Read-only until the password is entered. See Password protection.
Prompt for a password when trying to change the database	Ask at the moment of the change, instead of requiring Database › Get write access.
Renumber movies	Rewrites Movie number sequentially across the whole collection. Cannot be undone.

Free to try. Catalog up to 100 movies at no cost, forever.