{"id":3757,"date":"2017-07-03T22:41:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-03T22:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"\/kb\/?post_type=ht_kb&p=3757"},"modified":"2025-12-24T01:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:28:07","slug":"the-preferences-dialog","status":"publish","type":"ht_kb","link":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/knowledge-base\/the-preferences-dialog\/","title":{"rendered":"The Preferences Dialog"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article describes how to set the controls found in the Preferences Dialog<\/em>.\u00a0 This dialog is reached under the Edit<\/strong> <\/em>menu by selecting the Preferences…<\/strong><\/em> item.<\/p>\n

The Preferences Dialog holds variety of settings that are used to control the basic behaviors of the Caster.\u00a0 Note: Not all features displayed are available in the free or Lite<\/strong><\/em><\/span> model of SNIP<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 Those items which are grayed out are (except as noted below) are disabled in some models. Some of these items have additional knowledge base articles of their own.<\/p>\n

The default view when first run is as shown below:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In older releases of SNIP,<\/strong><\/span> fewer features are present but the general layout of the dialog is the same:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The dialog is divided into several major sections including:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Local Default Values,<\/li>\n
  2. Public Caster Details,<\/li>\n
  3. Misc Settings,<\/li>\n
  4. Enhanced Caster Table Replies,<\/li>\n
  5. Web Page Support & Integration<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Each of these, and its member controls, is discussed below.<\/p>\n

    Local Default Values<\/h3>\n

    This section allows adding human readable details about your caster table entries.\u00a0 It is mostly of use when setting up serial data streams<\/a> where these values are then used as default values in the Caster Table Dialog<\/a>.\u00a0 Data streams which are obtained in other ways typically provide their own Caster Table entries, which are then reused.<\/p>\n

    City Name<\/h4>\n

    A common name for the region where these mountPts are operated.\u00a0 This value can also include spaces so lines like “Los Angeles, California” are valid as well, but single words like “Madrid” are also common. If you will use terse 4~5 digit names for your local mountPt, this can be of value to distinguish the operational region.<\/p>\n

    Country<\/h4>\n

    A three letter alpha code following definitions found in ISO-3166<\/a> code lists<\/a> for your country.\u00a0 If left blank the letters “XXX” are used to indicate unknown. A blank space is also valid if preferred.<\/p>\n

    Lat and Lon Details<\/h4>\n

    The location of your caster (or more correctly, any serial stream GNSS devices you connect), expressed to 2 digits (about a 1km in many places).\u00a0 In data streams where SNIP<\/strong><\/span> will parse the data (e.g. RTCM 3.x formats), these values need not be set.\u00a0 SNIP<\/strong><\/span>‘s auto configuration features will complete the Caster Table with the correct data.<\/p>\n

    Public Caster Details<\/h3>\n

    At the end of each Caster Table listing is a “network” entry (NET:) which is used to inform other parties about the owner\/ operators and how they can be contacted.\u00a0 There are valid reasons to leave this section blank if your user community (NTRIP Client<\/a> list) is very small and already knows how to contact you.\u00a0 If not, you probably will want to fill in these details.<\/p>\n

    Operator<\/h4>\n

    Typically the name of the owner or the Firm operating this SNIP<\/strong><\/span> Caster node.<\/p>\n

    Home Page<\/h4>\n

    If you have a web page you wish to drive potential new users to, enter it here.\u00a0 If you have sign-up policies for new users, it is common to link to that page here.<\/p>\n

    Contact<\/h4>\n

    If you have a preferred way for users to contact you, enter it here.\u00a0 This entry is free text, and it is a common practice to enter both an email and a phone number if you wish.\u00a0 Therefore a string like: “signup@myCaster.com Ph:555-123-4567” is a valid entry.<\/p>\n

    Network<\/h4>\n

    Except for custom White Label <\/i><\/b><\/span>Editions of SNIP<\/strong><\/span>, this is fixed to be SNIP<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

    Misc Settings<\/h3>\n

    The misc. settings group is used to control the rate at which “dead” remote-relay<\/a> data streams are retried.\u00a0 And it is also used to control certain flags in the resulting Caster Table that control how or if NTRIP Clients<\/a> will send their estimated locations back to the SNIP Caster.<\/p>\n

    Slow Retry Rate<\/h4>\n

    It is recommended that you leave this control as is, but a longer retry time can be selected.\u00a0 The effect of a longer retry time is simply that the copy of SNIP<\/strong><\/span> may not check that a data stream which has gone off-line has subsequently resumed for several more hours than otherwise could occur.\u00a0 You can also cause all non-connected streams to immediately retry by pressing the Restart Pending Streams<\/strong><\/em> button on the Relay Streams<\/a> tab.<\/p>\n

    Accept NMEA-183 $GPGGA data<\/h4>\n

    This control, when enabled, overrides certain flags in every Caster table entry (i.e. for ALL<\/strong> data streams) to indicate that the Caster wants to see periodic NMEA-183 $GPGGA<\/a> sentences from the NTRIP Clients.\u00a0 This allows SNIP<\/strong><\/span> to collect, track and map the reported<\/a> user location.\u00a0 The rate that the data is sent to the Caster is controlled by each Client side device.<\/p>\n

    While the use of NMEA-183 $GPGGA sentences by Casters was originally devised to support virtual reference station stream<\/a> (VRS), some SNIP<\/strong><\/span> operators use this ability as a simple AVL tool for their users.<\/p>\n

    Enable Auto-eMail for Autonomous Users<\/h4>\n

    This control, when enabled, will allow SNIP<\/strong><\/span> to detect and uses valid eMail addresses in the NTRIP user name field. It will use such addresses to send warnings and alert emails in the event of multiple bad connection attempts.\u00a0 A valid eMail Plug-In is also required.<\/p>\n

    Show any Ill-formed RTCM3 msg decodes<\/h4>\n

    This control, when enabled, will denote on the console whenever an RTCM message is not correctly decoded or when a bad CRC field is found.\u00a0 This most often indicates a bad GNSS devices creating the source message, as the TCP\/IP transport layer has its own process to detect and retry to prevent the delivery of bad packets.\u00a0 Typically used only for debugging.<\/p>\n

    Confirm Slot removals<\/h4>\n

    This control, when enabled, causes SNIP<\/strong><\/span> to present an “are you sure…” confirmation dialog before removing any slot.<\/p>\n

    Enhanced Caster Table Replies<\/h3>\n

    The settings group controls the details of how Caster Table are returned to NON<\/strong> NTRIP Client devices such as web browsers.\u00a0 When enabled, browser friendly html is used for such devices.<\/p>\n

    Aside<\/strong><\/em><\/span>:\u00a0 You can easily see a report of what type of devices (clients, web browsers, etc.) are connecting to your SNIP<\/strong><\/span> node with List Recent IP…<\/strong><\/em> button found on the The Caster and Clients<\/strong><\/em> tab.<\/p>\n

    Browser Friendly Caster Tables<\/h4>\n

    When enabled, devices which are not<\/span> NTRIP Clients (do not have the correct NTRIP keyword in the User Agent metadata) are returned a modified Caster Table wrapped in well-formed html.<\/p>\n

    It is a common practice to use your browser to ping a site to confirm it is operational and to see its data holdings.\u00a0 However Chrome has recently decided to no longer display valid NTRIP Caster tables, motivating\u00a0 this change.<\/p>\n

    Decorate Caster Tables with Links<\/h4>\n

    This feature has not yet been released.\u00a0 Working along with the web based Decoder and\u00a0 display of Caster tables<\/a>, it will allow\/disallow access to other meta information about the data streams from the Web Page integration group below.<\/p>\n

    Send html<\/em> when IP is banned<\/h4>\n

    When enabled, any remote IPs which have been banned are returned an html page explaining that the ban process is occurring to them.\u00a0 When not<\/span> enabled, a terse 403 reply is used.\u00a0 This can at times leave remote users confused.<\/p>\n

    Aside<\/strong><\/em><\/span>:\u00a0 The most common reason for an IP to be banned is simply an ill-configured client device trying to connect for days on end; however denial of service attackers also can occur.\u00a0 You can easily see & edit what IPs have been banned at any time with the controls on the The Caster and Clients<\/strong><\/em> tab.<\/p>\n

    Web Page Integration<\/h3>\n

    SNIP<\/strong><\/span> provides integration services, generating dynamic web pages for both local and remote web site use. This group allows user to develop an more integrated approach to combining the SNIP<\/strong><\/span> Caster with their other web services. It also allows integrated access to the monitoring services for Pro<\/strong><\/em><\/span> user.<\/p>\n

    Outer SNIP copies:\u00a0 Email Services<\/h3>\n

    SNIP<\/strong><\/span> provides an integrated email SMTP service which can be used to contact the base of registered users (and new ones) as well as selected operators.\u00a0 This provides support for periodic reports and for RAIM monitoring services.\u00a0 At this time these are Enterprise<\/strong> <\/em><\/span>level features, but they are now being migrated down for use by Pro<\/strong> <\/em><\/span>users.<\/p>\n

    These control have now been moved to a menu, see Misc<\/strong> \u21d2 eMail Settings…<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Concluding Remarks<\/h3>\n

    The Preferences Dialog, like many other dialogs in SNIP<\/strong><\/span>, makes use of verbose tool tips to repeat critical setup information to the operator.\u00a0 Like many other dialogs, the “i<\/strong><\/em><\/span>” button can also be used to quickly bring up further information pages (in this case this page) from this knowledge base site.<\/p>\n

    \"Prefs_wToolTip\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    NTRIP Client Assist, from Rev 1.12 and on-wards.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    SNIP<\/strong><\/span> now provides a new SNIP-2-SNIP assistance logic<\/em> system.\u00a0 When enabled, if another SNIP<\/strong><\/span> device fails to connect to your system; helpful details about why the connection attempt failed are provide back to the other device and are then displayed on the SNIP<\/strong><\/span> console here.\u00a0 The information is helpful, but does not reveal security details about your SNIP<\/strong><\/span> node.\u00a0 For example; a user it told that they were rejected due to an incorrect password, or a non-existent mountPt, etc., rather than only getting the Caster Table back and not understanding why.\u00a0 Other devices will not<\/em> see or display these messages (it is part of the html 4xx returned error message).<\/p>\n

    A check box in Misc settings marked Enable SNIP-2-SNIP assistance<\/strong> controls this feature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This article describes how to set the controls found in the Preferences Dialog.\u00a0 This dialog is reached under the Edit menu by selecting the Preferences… item. The Preferences Dialog holds variety of settings that are used to control the basic behaviors of the Caster.\u00a0 Note: Not all features displayed are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"ht-kb-category":[284],"ht-kb-tag":[345,206],"class_list":["post-3757","ht_kb","type-ht_kb","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","ht_kb_category-snip-tabs-and-controls","ht_kb_tag-preferences","ht_kb_tag-settings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ht-kb\/3757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ht-kb"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ht_kb"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3757"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ht-kb\/3757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9321,"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ht-kb\/3757\/revisions\/9321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ht_kb_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ht-kb-category?post=3757"},{"taxonomy":"ht_kb_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.use-snip.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ht-kb-tag?post=3757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}