GENERAL:

Create new document at startup:
Whether you want a new empty document or nothing at all when you start the program. This option has no effect if you start with a file e.g. by double clicking on a file.

Syntax colour new documents:
Whether new documents should by default get syntax colours according to the settings in the Syntax Colouring tab (see also Syntax Colouring).

Linewrap new documents:
Whether new documents should linewrap (i.e. wrap the lines at the end of the window so that you can see the whole line) by default.

Show invisible characters in new documents:
Whether to show invisible characters as default for new documents.

Show matching braces:
When you when you write a ), } or ] Smultron briefly highlights the corresponding (, { or [ if it can find it, otherwise it beeps.

Indent new lines automatically:
After you press Enter place the cursor on the new line where text starts on the preceding line

Show line gutter for new documents:
Whether to show the line numbers field for new documents. The width is in pixels and the line numbers field automatically resizes if it is too small. Set the width to no less than 20 and there really should be no need to have it larger than 50 but you can if you want to.

Number of recent items:
How many past files to display in the File menu under Recent Items

Status Bar:
Show when last saved:
The date and time of the last time the document was saved. See the Appearances tab to set how it is displayed

Show length of document:
The number of characters in the document

Show length of selection:
The number of characters in the current selection, if less than two characters are selected this won't show in the status bar

Show position:
Shows first the location of the cursor in the line and then the location of the cursor in the whole document.

Show syntax definition:
Show which syntax definition is set for this document; you can change it through Syntax Definition in the View-menu and also set the Preference as you like in the Syntax Colouring tab.

Show text encoding:
Show which encoding the current document has; you can change it through Text Encoding in the Text-menu and also set the Preference as you like in the Open & Save tab.

APPEARANCE:
Font:
Set the font and size for the text of the document and also for its line numbers. This applies to new documents so it won't change the currently opened documents.

Text colour:
Set the colour of the text of the document but not for its line numbers. This applies to new documents so it won't change the currently opened documents.

Background colour:
Set the colour of the background of the document but not for its line numbers. This applies to new documents so it won't change the currently opened documents.

Tab width:
This sets how wide a tab should be; it calculates the width by checking the width of the number of spaces you state here in the current font. This applies to new documents so it won't change the currently opened documents.

Size of documents list text:
Set the size of the system font to either 11 or 13 where the open documents are listed.

Use alternating row background colours:
Use a blue background colour for every other row where the open documents are listed.

Show full path in window title:
If you want to display the full path to the current document e.g. “CocoaIsWonderful.html — /Users/steve/Desktop” instead of just “CocoaIsWonderful.html” in the title of the window.

Use local date format instead of international standard in status bar:
Show the date and time of the last save for the current document in your local format instead of international standard in status bar.

I hate brushed metal windows:
If you hate the brushed metal window you can change it to the classic Aqua window style by choosing this option. (Note that the drawer is still in brushed metal whatever option you choose.)

SYNTAX COLOURING:
Only colour till the end of the line if it can't find closing tag:
Only continue to colour till the end of the line instead of the rest of the document if just the start tag is found and not the closing tag in e.g. a multiline comment

Colour multi-line strings:
Colour a string even if it has line-breaks in it.

Show spinning progress indicator during complete recolour:
Show a spinning progress indicator in the lower left corner of the window when the program does a complete recolour of the document. Enabling this option does make the recolouring slightly slower.

Colours:
What colours to colour the different parts of the text with. See Syntax Colouring for a description of what the different parts are.

Definition:
Here you choose whether the Smultron should guess from the extension which syntax definition to use (e.g. if the extension of the document is .html it will use HTML) or if it should always use a particular syntax definition). If the document does not have an extension it tries to guess by checking the first line of the document for e.g. #!/usr/bin/perl and then maps it to the syntax definition; if it can't guess, it will use the Standard one.

OPEN & SAVE:
Open:
Whether when you choose Open to start at the folder where you last opened a document from, or start at the same folder as the current document or whether to always start at a particular folder.

Save As:
Same as for Open but for when you choose Save As...

Encodings:
Choose whether to always use a particular text encoding when you open a file or whether to guess the encoding of the document. Smultron guesses by trying to find “charset=” or if it can't find that, search for “encoding=” and map the encoding to what follows after that. If it can't find the encoding this way it checks for either EFBBBF, FEFF or FFFE at the beginning of the file and, if found, set the encoding to UTF-8 or UTF-16. If it can't guess by any of these means it sets it to the chosen encoding.

ADVANCED:

Recolour whole page immediately after every key pressed:
Whether to automatically recolour the whole page immediately after every key pressed or wait the usual 0.3 seconds for another key before Smultron recolours the whole visible page (see Syntax Colouring for more information). Choosing this option will make Smultron slightly slower but it will remove any flickering that could otherwise occur in languages like PHP and JSP.

Recolour complete document automatically:
Whether to automatically recolour the whole document after the specified time period after the last key was pressed. If a key is pressed before the recolouring starts the recolouring is pushed forward again until the specified time period has passed. If the document isn't that big (less than 100KB) you probably won't notice that a complete recolouring occurs but if you regularly work with really big documents you might want switch this off and recolour manually through the View-menu if it's necessary.

Preserve Creator and Type when saving files:
When a Mac OS X application saves a file it sometimes sets the Creator and Type of the document so that whenever you double-click on that document it starts with that particular application. If you choose this option Smultron won't change that information, otherwise it will set the document to always start with Smultron. New documents are always saved so that they start with Smultron.

Check if document has been updated by another application:
If another application opens the current document and saves it so that the document you opened is not the same as it is now you get the choice with this option if you want to update your document or whether to ignore the changes made to the saved document.

Line endings (when saving):
Different operating systems (Unix, Windows etc.) uses different invisible characters to denote that you want a new line. This option gets you to choose to which line ending you want when you save your document. If you don't have a particular need you can usually set it to “Leave unchanged” which leaves the line endings as it is for documents that you have opened. New documents uses the Unix standard.

Indent with spaces, not tabs:
Writes spaces and not a tab when the tab key is pressed. How many spaces are determined by Tab width in Appearance.

If I choose to open a folder, open all files within it:
Opens all files recursively within the chosen folder.

When Smultron starts, open all documents I had open when I last quit:
This saves a list of all the documents (except for new documents that has never been saved) that are open when Smultron is closed and opens them automatically the next time Smultron starts.

Colour for invisible characters when shown:
The colour that the usually invisible characters have when they are shown.