Chapter 03 - Preference Bar

[KnightRider]

• What is the Preference Bar and the Preference Bar icons?
• What is the Disk icon (save)?
• What is the Shortcut icon?
• What is the Sound and Music icons?
• What is the Preferences/Wrench icon?
• What is the plug icon? Online/Offline.
• What is the question mark icon (HELP)?
• How to use Shortcuts

Should you need to get back to this post to look for other information:
Each post has a Table of Contents link bottom right of the post, which when you click, will bring you right back here.

[KnightRider]

Preference Bar & Icons:

The Preference Bar is a set of icons that is located in the top right corner of your game screen. This is where you can access certain items to enhance your game.

Each icon is explained in the posts below, just click on the icon that you want to read about and it will take you to that post.


The icons:

Disc Icon - Pending Saves A number shows when there are pending saves.


Shortcuts Where you can change some of the tools in the Game bar at the bottom right of your game screen.


Sound/Music. The Sound icon always shows above the Music icon. To view the music icon hover your mouse over the sound icon.


Preferences. Show/Hide things like crops, trees flowers and many other settings.


Online/Offline.


HELP icon. This icon is used to see a small tutorial for those who are wanting to know and understand a few basic functions of the games icons.

Table of Contents

[KnightRider]

Disc Icon - Pending Saves White background: If the disk is white, there are no pending "Save" operations to be completed on our servers.

Red and a number instead of the white Disc When the disc icon is red and has a number in it, this means there are that amount of "Save" operations still to be emitted to our servers to "save" your farm work.

For example buying many animals, like sheep for putting into animal sheds to get wool, will cause the number on the counter to climb. Some animals are animated so take longer to load than something like a decoration or animal that is not animated.

You need to wait for the disc to turn back to white again before you exit the game or close your browser.

If you close your browser at that moment without waiting for that number to go away and show a disc with a white background, then the next time you go back to your farm you will have to redo that work again.

Table of Contents

[KnightRider]

Shortcuts Icon

This icon you can use to move up to 5 tools to the slots at the bottom right. To use this icon, just click on the arrow (shown above) and a window with all the tools will open. You then click on the tool that you want to move and then click on the position at the bottom. It will only show the spots that a tool can placed.

For detailed information on how to use and change the Shortcuts Click Here.

Table of Contents

[KnightRider]

Sound Icon When you hover your mouse over the sound icon in the preference bar the music icon will drop down and it will look like the picture below:

Sound Icon: When the background is white you will hear ambient noises like the animals making their farm noises to let you know they are around.

If do not wish to hear these noises simply click on the Sound icon and it will turn red and those will be disabled.

Music Icon: When the background is white you will hear the music that the game has for your listening pleasure.

To turn off the Music, click on the icon to turn it red and you will no longer hear the wonderful music of farm town.

To turn both Sound and Music OFF both icons must be red:

Table of Contents

[KnightRider]

Preferences / Wrench Icon

This is one of the most important icons in the game and will reflect and make a lot of changes to how the game is played and how efficient your computer can possibly play the game as well. The items below will work on your farms and some of them will work on farms that you visit/work.

In the picture below we have numbered all the options in red.
The list below the picture is also numbered for the description of what that setting does.

1. Show Crops
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of crops that is growing, ready to harvest or withered on your farm. It won't hide plowed or harvested fields.

2. Show Trees
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of trees.

3. Show Flowers
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of flowers.

4. Show Ponds
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of ponds.

5. Show Seasonal Items
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of seasonal items, this includes holiday items.

6. Show Ships
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of the yellow, pink, brown, purple, green, orange, blue cargo ships. Currently this only prevents ships from showing when on other farmers farms.

7. Show Ground Covers
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of the ground covers. This includes the Grass with Guidelines and the Snow cover in the Winter section of the Store.

This setting does NOT include Paths or the bridges in the Paths/Grounds section of the store. There is not a setting to prevent those from showing, but you can click on them and use an option in the menu that shows to hide them OR use the Hide tool in your tool box to temporarily hide individual items.

8. Show Decorations
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of decorations. The Paths from the Paths/Ground section of the store will not be hidden.

9. Show Buildings
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of decorative buildings.

10. Show Tools
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of tools. This includes the Semi Trailer as well as all other Tools.

11. Show Regular Facilities
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of all the Regular Facilities and Non-Workable Facilities. It also includes the Oil Pump which used to be categorised as a Tool.

12. Show Service Facilities
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of all the Service Facilities.

13. Show Animal Buildings
With this option you can toggle on/off the viewing of all of the Animal Buildings like the dairy shed, chicken coop, stables, wool shed etc.


The All and None blue buttons allow you to toggle all the above selections on or off


NOTES FOR ITEMS 1 THROUGH 13:

• When you hide items on your farm you will see little red squares where the items was located, there could be some items like asphalt road pieces that might hide the little red squares. If you refresh your game these squares will disappear and may cause you some confusion cause there would be nothing showing where any of the hidden items are located. So always check if you are unsure if you have anything hidden or not.
  
• With some older computers you might find that hiding items that you are not working on could make your computer run faster on your farms and when working on others farms due to the resources that a flash game uses from your computer to render those items. For working on others farms hide everything in the Show options, then you can show only the items you need to work them. When you are working facilities for friends the game will automatically hide everything for you to make loading the farm faster unless there is no work left in the facilities. If for some reason you wanted to see the items you can click on the white "Show Items" button you will see bottom right of the game screen.
  
• You can hide facilities, buildings, decorations and other items that could be in front of crops, trees and/or flowers blocking them so you can't see them, this way you would be able to see them so that you can harvest and/or chop.
  
• If you want to purchase something from the store and place it on your farm, it would be advisable to show all items on that farm so that after you purchase the item you will see where everything is located and you would be able to see the vacant spaces on your farm. If you have any items hidden you wouldn't be able to see them when trying to place a purchased item.

14. Highlight Fertilized Crops/Trees - (disabled at this time)
With this option you can toggle on/off if you'd like your fertilized crops/trees to have a small glow or no glow (though items will still have an 'F' if they are fertilized). Placing a check here gives trees and crops a glow. It also highlights crop/trees on others farms also. This option will also highlight flowers that has been fertilized and in the growing stage. If you chose to use this when you add the check mark you will be shown a popup with information that his setting can make the game slower and tells you another method to know when you crops etc are fertilized.

15. Show coins and XP animations - (disabled at this time)
With this option you can toggle on/off the coins and XP animations.

16. Show Feedback when Farming
With this option you can toggle on/off whether to show less text feedback. This option is ON by default, if you uncheck it, then when using the Sow and Harvest tools (specially the sow tools) you will see less text feedback when mouse over or clicking in items or empty space, this will help users claiming that those texts were getting in the way while farming or those who may have internet issues.

17. Show Animals When Not At Home
With this option you can toggle on/off whether to show loose animals that is on other players farm when you go to visit/work their farms. A lot of loose animals can put a huge amount of strain on a computer and can make it run really slow so if you don't need need to see them, leave this setting off. NOTE: When visiting farms with this setting on you won't see all the possible animals on a farm, only the farm owner will be able to see them all.

18. Transparent Dispatched Train
With this option you can toggle on/off whether you want your trains to be transparent or not.

19. Freeze animals
With this option you can toggle on/off whether you would like to freeze animals from moving around either when you visit other players farms or on your farms it could be helpful if you are having a hard time clicking on animals because they are moving around. Having the check mark added to this option can also cause some to have issues with a slow game. If you have the check mark removed and you decide to move an animal to another spot, as long as there is a clear path to the spot the animal will walk there. If the path is too long or there is no clear path the animal will teleport to the new spot.

20. Compressed Graphics
If your farms are too slow to load because they have too many *different* items or because of a slow internet connection you can try enabling this setting. The graphics will have a bit less quality but will load faster.
If you decide to try this, remember to click the green check mark to save the setting then reload Farm Town.

21. Remove Spaces between fields
With this option you can toggle on/off to remove spaces between plowed plots. When you first begin playing Farm Town the default setting is to have a space between the plots. By putting a check mark here this will remove the spaces between the plots so that each plot will be next to each other giving more room to plow. If you have already plowed some plots and you decide that you want change the setting, you must delete the plowed spaces with a bulldozer from the extended toolbox. After you delete the plots you want to change, you then can change this option and plow those plots again. If you have planted plots and decide to change the setting, depending on how many plots you have planted it might be better if you wait until you harvest those plots before you delete them (which you would lose those crops if you delete them before harvesting), but if you want you can go ahead and delete them with a bulldozer, then change the setting, replow and plant those plots again.

22. Skip funeral facilities
With the check mark added, this will hide all funeral facilities when working your neighbour facilities and also from your quests.

23. Enable Ships.
With this option you can participate in the ships feature of the game (check mark added) or you can close your port (remove the check mark) so you do not get any ships coming to your port. When this is disabled your seaport will not receive any more ships from other players and other players will not be able to load your ships.

24. Autoselect Tools
This will allow you to enjoy the same experience as when you are farming while hired for multiple jobs, when there is no more work available in the farm for the tool you are currently using the game will switch you automatically to the next job available on that farm and will select the best tool for you. This feature will not work on Quest Farms because is difficult to know the best tool the user would like to use. NOTE: Once you land on one of your farms with work available the system will not automatically select a tool for you, you will always have to select the first tool yourself.

25. Skip Religious Facilites
With the check mark added, this will hide all religious facilities when working your neighbour facilities and also from your quests.

26. Enable NCC
If you do not wish to participate in the Neighbourhood Chains Contest you can remove the check mark here. This will allow you to not get automatically enrolled in the Neighbourhood Chains Contest when working your facilities. Your neighbours will not see you as part of their team. If you change your mind and want to enable it again, along with adding the check mark back please see this post in Chapter 31 How to Enable and disable the NCC for more details.

Language
With this option you can change to the Language you want. The English settings re the most commonly used ones at this time, and are likely to have more people at the markets if you're going there to hire or be hired. To change the language, click on the drop down arrow and select the one you want then click the green check mark to save the change. This setting will remain set for the game until you change it.

The Language setting you can change via the MAP is a temporary change allowing you to visit other markets where users may prefer another spoken language, that stays for just the session, when you reload the game it will reset to your preferences language setting.

Table of Contents

[KnightRider]

Plug Icon - Indicates when you are Online or Offline in the game.

In most cases you can choose when to be Online or Offline by clicking on that icon to change the setting.

Green background: If the icon has a green background that means that you are playing on-line and capable of interacting with other FarmTown Farmers.

Red background: If the icon has a red background that means that you are playing off-line and not capable of interacting with other Facebook/Farm Town farmers. If you are playing off-line it is advisable before you leave the game to go on-line to make sure that the data has been saved to the servers.

However when working Neighbours and Buddies Facilities you will notice that the Online/Offline plug has no colour and that in most cases things like crop etc will also automatically be hidden for you so there is less for you to load while you work their facilities.

This means that you can not change your Online/Offline status at that time.
You are offline while you are working facilities. After you have finished you can manually go back online by clicking on the Icon OR you will automatically go back online when you return home, visit someone else's farm or go to other areas like the markets where you might need to communicate with other farmers. The items you had set to show in your preferences will also automatically show up again.

Table of Contents

[KnightRider]

Question Mark (HELP) Icon

This icon is used to see a small tutorial for those who are wanting to know and understand a few basic functions of the games icons.

In various other areas of the game you will see a question mark with a green background, like the example below. Those can also be clicked on to see more information you may need or want to know.

Table of Contents

[KnightRider]

How to use Shortcuts



At the top right corner of the game screen is the Preference Bar. Shown above.

To place tools into shortcuts you need to click on the icon that looks like a curved arrow and a window will open, example below:

NOTE: For the Tools you own to show up in this section they must be placed into Item Storage. Farm Cash tools do NOT use any of your Item Storage capacity, you can store as many of them as you want.

These arrows will show at either the top or bottom of each column when there are more tools in the column than can be displayed all at once, just click on them to scroll the column up or down. If you have a lot of tools you will need to do this to see more tools.


To place a tool into the game bar spaces:

1. Click on any tool showing in the upper section to pick the tool up, area indicated with a green box.
   
   
2. The upper area will then grey out and show you the 5 game bar spaces that you can place that tool into. You will already have some tools there, this farmer likely has different ones than you have there.
   
   
3. Move the tool over one of the spaces that isn't greyed out until a slim green box appears. You can just make out the chainsaw is touching the green combine and there is a green box around that area.
   
   

   

4. Click inside the green box to set the tool down and the upper section will show up again to all the tools you own. You will see that the tool you moved is now in the shortcut space.
   
   
5. To place more tools just click on another tool in the upper area and repeat the steps.
   
   
6. When you are done click on the blue close shortcut editor to close the window and save your changes.
   

   

You can add more shortcut spaces by using some of the Neighbour bar to open up 2 or 4 more spaces:

1. The curved arrows are where the extra neighbours slots are that you could use:
   
   
   
   
2. Click on one of the curved arrows and An Additional Shortcuts Menu will appear.

   
   

3. Click on the option you want to use.
   
   
   Use 1 Neighbour Slot will give you another 2 shortcut spaces.
   

   

   
   Use 2 Neighbour Slots will give you 4 additional shortcut spaces.
   

   

   
   Do not use Any Slots will remove the extra spaces if you no longer need them.
   
   
   
4. Using the extra spaces is exactly the same as putting the tools in the game bar spaces. Click on any tool showing in the upper section to pick the tool up.
   
   
5. The upper area will then grey out and show you the 5 game bar spaces plus the extra spaces you just added that you can place that tool into.
   
   
6. Move the tool over one of those spaces until a green box appears.
   
   

   

7. Click in the green box to set the tool down.
   
   
8. To place more tools just click on another tool in the upper area and repeat the steps.
   
   
9. When you are done click on the blue close shortcut editor to close the window and save your changes.
   

   

   When you add more spaces using this method and close the window you will see one or two less neighbours in the neighbours bar as you used those spaces for the extra shortcut spaces.

To remove the extra neighbour bar spaces or reduce them:

Click on the shortcut icon.

Then click on any of the tools you have in the extra neighbour bar spaces, for example the tool furthest left, doesn't matter if it's the top one or the one underneath, then you will see the menu for Additional Spaces.

To remove all the extra spaces you click on Do Not Use Any Slots
To reduce from 4 extra spaces to only 2 extra spaces click on Use 1 Neighbour Slot.

When you are done click on the blue close shortcut editor to close the window and save your changes.

Replacing a Tool with another Tool:

• To replace a tool with another one, after opening the shortcuts editor click on the new tool in the upper area that you want to replace it with.
  
  
• Then move it over to the space where the tool you want to replace is located. When the green box appears, click inside it to replace the tool.

Table of Contents