Appearance

Select Tools > FME Options > Appearance.

Tip  Use the Filter search to find a setting located anywhere in FME Options.

Visual Experience

Allows you to view FME Workbench in Light or Dark mode.

Note  You must restart FME Workbench for this change to take effect.

Use Deuteranopia Distinguishable Colors

If Light is specified, you can change the appearance of the FME Workbench canvas to assist persons with this form of color blindness.

Canvas

Canvas Font

Sets the default font to be used on the workspace canvas.

Truncate Names On

Allows you to specify how object names are truncated: from the left, right, or center.

For example, if object names consist of frequently occurring prefixes, you may want to truncate the text from either the center or the left so you can see more descriptive text at a glance.

This option affects reader, writer, and transformer object names.

Default Transformer/Reader/Writer Size

Sets the default width of transformers, readers, and writers that are added to the canvas.

Size To Text: Object width auto-adjusts to the width of the longest text that appears in the object.

Fixed Width: Objects display on the canvas to a fixed width. Object text is truncated if it is longer than the fixed width, unless the object width is manually expanded.

Text Size Calculation

If Default Transformer/Reader/Writer Size is Size to Text, specifies whether attribute names are considered in calculating object width.

Connection Path

Changes the appearance of connections on the FME Workbench canvas between Curved, Squared, and Straight.

Bookmark Options

Bookmark Color Palette

Specifies the available palette of bookmark colors that FME applies automatically to bookmarks as they are created. If a selection is specified, FME applies a random color from among those checked under Bookmark Palette Colors. Any colors unchecked still appear in the color list of a bookmark's properties, and can be set manually.

Note  It is always possible to change the color of a bookmark manually to a custom color, regardless of this setting.

For more control over the range of colors in a palette, perform the following:

  1. Select User Defined Palette.
  2. Expand Bookmark Palette Colors.
  3. Under Use As Default, check the colors you want FME to use by default when adding bookmarks to the canvas. (To speed up the selection process, you can check or uncheck Use As Default to check all or uncheck all colors.)
  4. (Optional) To import more colors to the palette from your own palette, click Import.
  5. (Optional) To export the palette as configured, click Export.

Annotation Options

Default Annotation Font

Sets the default font for annotations.

Connection Styles

Allows you to configure styles for Customizing Connections. To configure a style, select a property of the Style Name you want to edit, click the ellipsis (...), and make the desired changes.

Note  Light Mode and Dark Mode refer to the colors that render for the specified Visual Experience (above).

To add a row for a new style, click + and configure the properties as described above. Alternatively, click the Copy Row icon and adjust as desired.

Tip  To make connections more visible or easier to select, especially when the canvas view is zoomed out, update the Width and/or color of the <Default> connection style.

Advanced Options

Enable automatic scaling for High DPI Displays

This setting applies to systems that use high DPI displays (3840 × 2160 pixels or more). If checked, all FME graphical applications, including FME Workbench, FME Data Inspector, FME Quick Translator, and the FME Help viewer, scale the interface so that fonts and icons do not render too small.

Warning  This setting may cause problems on displays with resolutions lower than 4K, such as 1980 X 1020, and a scale factor set to higher than 100%.

Use system OpenGL for Web View

Check to use the OpenGL Graphics Library (OpenGL) for web-based views in FME. Doing so may solve display problems in viewers such as the FME Workbench Start page, FME Help viewer, or FME Hub viewer.

Configure Sound Events

You can adjust FME sound events using the Windows Sound and Audio Devices Properties. You can set FME Workbench to make a distinctive sound whenever an object is copied, cut, pasted, connected, and deleted. It will also tell you when a translation is successful or has failed. You can also set two events in the FME Data Inspector: when a data load is complete, and when a redraw is performed (but only if the redraw is longer than 3 seconds).

Note that by default all the sounds are set to Off. Follow these steps to enable them:

  • Click Configure Sound Events.
  • Scroll through the Program Events until you find FME Workbench or FME View.
  • Select the sound to associate with the applicable event.
  • Click OK.
Note  To use this setting, your system must support OpenGL version 2.1 or later.

Restore Defaults

Click Restore Defaults button at the bottom of the dialog to revert this page to FME installation defaults. You are prompted to confirm your selection.