Options

The various pages of the Options window are shown here.  Most of the options are self-explanatory, and allow you to configure BMDPed the way you want it to look and act.

The first tab sets the options for the Pedigree windows.  You can choose which items you want displayed in each line of the pedigree.  The box at the bottom of this window gives you a preview of what each line of the pedigree will look like as you adjust the various check boxes, fonts and colours.

Clicking on the little arrow symbol opens the font editor where you can change the look of each individual item in the pedigree line.

Inbreed Coefficients (IC's) are calculated on-the-fly for a given root dog when the dog first appears in a pedigree or in an Info window..

The calculation walks up the pedigree and in the process also calculates the IC for each ancestor. The depth of tree walking from the root dog is controlled by the Generations Depth setting above. As a result, as ancestors become more distant from the root dog, their IC's are (initially) not calculated as accurately. For example, if the Depth setting is 12, the root dog IC is calculated to 12 generations deep, the sire and dam to 11 gens, sire's sire to 10 gens etc.

Because the calculations are time consuming, all IC and Depth values are stored for each dog in the database so that they do not have to be calculated every time the pedigree is shown.

As you move a given ancestor down the tree (closer to being a root dog), higher (more accurate) IC values may be obtained, and so the older less accurate values are replaced with the latest more accurate result.

Eventually, all dogs will have IC values calculated to the full depth as set above.

Here is the important consideration: any time you RAISE the Depth value setting above, new values will be calculated as you explore the pedigrees. If you LOWER the Depth setting above, nothing already calculated will change, as only the most accurate calculations are stored and displayed. If you wish to lower the depth for any reason, you must also then click on Zero all IC's in Database so that all values will be recalculated.

If you wish, you may recalculate all the IC's in the entire database by clicking the Recalculate button. However, this can take many hours depending on the speed of your system.

The Navigator is a group of arrows (example shown above) that appears at the bottom of every Pedigree window. It serves as an easy way to navigate dog-by-dog through the database, as well as quickly getting to the beginning or end.

You can have it navigate either alphabetically by DOGNAME or numerically by the DOG NUMBER either by choosing here, or by right-clicking on any Navigator in any Pedigree window.