WhatPulse guides: Settings and Customization

This week's WhatPulse guide is on what you can do in the WhatPulse settings and how you can change them to your preferred settings.

How to get to them

This is how to get to the WhatPulse settings.

1. Right click the WhatPulse icon.
   


2. Click on "Program Settings".
   


3. Now you've got the Settings open.
   

What different things do

Program Settings → Settings.

Here we can see important settings which are very important.

• Launch at Windows Startup. This allows WhatPulse to launch automatically and make the programme work once you switch on your computer. I think it's very useful, and if you don't tick it, you'll have to launch it automatically once you turn on your computer.


• Show Splash Screen on Startup. This option allows you to have the logo of WhatPulse show up once you've launched it. It doesn't really matter if you've got this one ticked or not, but I prefer it ticked as then I can see if WhatPulse has launched correctly or not.


• Use Alt+Ctrl+P to Pulse. Ticking this will allow you to pulse your amount of keys and clicks using Alt+Ctrl+P (all at once) or not.


• Double Click Tray Icon to Pulse. If you tick this you can pulse by double clicking the WhatPulse icon at the toolbar, bottom right of your screen. I personally don't like these as it may pulse for you by accident.


• Check Version on Startup. This is useful and I'll recommend it as it allows you to see if there's a new version of WhatPulse for you to download every time you start up your computer.


• Restart Timers on Manual Pulse. The Timers are what allows you to pulse automatically at a certain amount of keys, clicks or hours, which we'll explain later on. If you tick this, every time you pulse manually (pulsing by clicking "Pulse Now!"), the keys, clicks and hours you've set will reset to zero which will make you have to set them yourself again.


• Pulse Before Windows Shutdown. I've tried this one, and it didn't work for me for some reason. But in theory, it's supposed to, as it says, pulse for you automatically before your Windows computer shuts down. It might be useful it you want to compare how many keys you type a day for example.


• Blink Tray Upon Key/Click. You surely have noticed that everytime you press a key or click your mouse, the WhatPulse icon shows an arrow until you've stopped pressing or clicking it, if this annoys you, untick it so you won't see it anymore.


• Use Tray Balloons. I must say, I'm not entirely sure what "Tray Balloons" are, but my guess is that they're that informative progress text that pops up when you hover your mouse over the WhatPulse toolbar icon.


• Spawn Geek Window on Startup. This allows you to let WhatPulse launch the Geek Window once you start up your computer if you want or not.

Program Settings → Timers.

The Timers allow you to pulse once every time you set it to do so.

• Hour(s). The number you put in here will define every number of hour or hours you'll pulse automatically. Useful if you want to see how much you pulse every hour for example.


• Keys. The number you put in here will define every set number of keys you'll pulse. For example, if you put 9,001, you will automatically pulse every 9,001 keys. Useful if you'd like to compare keys to click ratio overtime, for example.


• Clicks. Basically the same as with in keys, but this time with clicks.

Program Settings #2.

More programme settings which you can customize.

• Distance Type. This allows to see how many miles, kilometres or metres you've moved your mouse during your pulse. If you've got the Geek Window open and this set on metres, you'll see live how many (centi)metres you're moving!


• Check Version. This allows you to check for new versions of WhatPulse every week, month or, if you don't like it, never.


• Ports. You shouldn't really change this one except if you've got port problems. If so, change your port to the other one and it should work fine again.


• Extra Options. In these two extra options you can choose if you'd like WhatPulse to show no automated popups (for example: "pulsed with 123,456 keys, 789,012 clicks and 3.45 miles!") if you don't particularly like them and if you'd like to generate a local XML file every five minutes (which would record your stats and other interesting stuff every five minutes.


• Counter Settings. If you really dislike, keys, clicks and/or mouse distance, here you can tick whichever one you dislike and WhatPulse will stop counting them for you.

Proxy Settings.

This allows for computer experts to choose a different proxy server and name if they'd prefer to do so.

Geek Window Skin.

Here you can change different settings of the Geek Window.

• Geek Window Colours and Positions. Here you can set the colours you want it to have in Hexadecimal colours and also its width.


• Geek Window Options. Here you can set if it if you want it to show you the time of next pulse (I don't know what this is, so I can't actually explain what it is) and the transparency of the Geek Window, i.e., if you'd like it to show the background of the programme you've got below it.

So, that's it for this WhatPulse guide article. I hope it has helped you or that you enjoyed reading it!