Marking Scheme and Feedback Assistant - Help - Introduction

UI style

There are several UI styles (colour themes) to choose from. Pick one from MFA > UI Style on the menu bar - it applies immediately, rebuilding the interface from the currently loaded marking scheme. The scheme itself isn't affected, but list/table selections and any in-progress, not-yet-saved edits elsewhere are reset, the same as starting MFA fresh. Your choice is remembered automatically (stored in MFAProperties.txt under AppWindow.Style) and used again the next time MFA starts.

Spell check

MFA can spellcheck feedback and comments in English, Welsh, both at once, or neither. Pick which from MFA > Spell Check on the menu bar - English and Welsh are independent on/off toggles, not a single choice, so both can be ticked together: a word is only underlined as a possible misspelling if it's wrong in every language currently ticked, so mixing English technical terms into Welsh feedback (or vice versa) doesn't get flagged. Untick both to turn spellchecking off entirely. Takes effect immediately, even on text already on screen, and your choice is remembered automatically (stored in MFAProperties.txt under Spellcheck.English and Spellcheck.Welsh) for next time.

Settings tab

The Settings tab is a plain table view of every configurable property MFA has - the same information that has always lived in a file called MFAProperties.txt, now editable directly instead of by hand-editing a text file. Open it from MFA > Settings… on the menu bar.

How it works

The table has two columns: Property (the setting's name, not editable) and Value. Click a value to edit it, type the new text, then press Enter or click elsewhere to commit. The Filter box above the table narrows the list to properties whose name contains what you type - useful since there are well over a hundred rows.

Two things are easy to miss the first time:

Edits update the table immediately, but are only written to MFAProperties.txt when you click Save. Nothing is saved automatically when MFA exits - an edit you haven't saved is lost, which is deliberate, so a value you decide not to keep never gets written out from under you.
Most properties are only read once, when the tab that uses them is built, so a changed value usually takes effect the next time MFA is started, not immediately in the current session.

Where MFAProperties.txt lives

MFA doesn't always keep the properties file in the same place - it works out a sensible folder once each time it starts, in this order:

If MFA was started with a -Dmfa.home=<path> command-line option, that folder is used (and created if it doesn't already exist yet). This is an explicit override, mainly useful for advanced or scripted setups.
Otherwise, the folder MFA was started from - if that folder already contains a MFAProperties.txt, or if it's simply a folder MFA is able to write to. This is the normal case: running the packaged bin/MFA launcher, java -jar, or running from Eclipse during development all keep the file right there beside the program.
Otherwise, a per-user settings folder - ~/Library/Application Support/MFA on macOS, ~/.mfa on Windows/Linux. This is what happens for a double-clicked macOS app bundle, whose working folder is / and can't be written to.

Whichever folder is chosen, MFA prints it to the console/log at startup as Working Folder: ..., which is the quickest way to check where a particular install is actually reading and writing its settings.

File choosers and the marking scheme files themselves aren't affected by any of this - only MFAProperties.txt moves.

What kinds of settings are here

The list is long, but it falls into a handful of groups:

Global	Things that apply across the whole tool rather than one tab - the default outgoing mail server and sender address, whether a regular backup of the marking scheme is written automatically, the accessibility font-size adjustment, the startup window size, and similar app-wide defaults.
List sizing & search	The height/width of the various lists (Assessments, Tasks, Grades, Cohort, Students…) on the Module, Assessments, Feedback and Results tabs, and whether each list's instant-search box is shown.
Feature toggles	Turns optional behaviour on or off - anonymous marking, editing an already-imported cohort, that kind of thing.
Feedback text & templates	By far the largest group - the wording and inline styling used to build the plain-text, HTML and Blackboard-flavoured feedback documents sent to students (headings, separators, grade-scale wording and similar). Only worth touching if you want to change the standard wording of generated feedback.
Spreadsheet generation	Column headings, named-range labels and marks-report input-file column positions used when building marking/marks-entry spreadsheets.

If you're not sure what a particular property does, the safest approach is to leave it alone - the built-in default is used for anything you never change.

A few properties worth knowing about

Most rows are best left alone, but these come up often enough to be worth knowing about:

Property	What it does
AppWindow.Style	The UI theme - normally set via MFA > UI Style on the menu bar rather than edited here directly (see "UI style" above).
Spellcheck.English Spellcheck.Welsh	Which spellcheck languages are active - normally set via MFA > Spell Check on the menu bar rather than edited here directly (see "Spell check" above). English is on and Welsh is off by default.
FeedbackText.* Feedback.*	The wording used to build feedback (headings, footers, messages like "Grade achieved" or "Your Marks"). Each has a Welsh counterpart at the same name plus .Welsh (e.g. FeedbackText.Task.Welsh) - MFA picks English or Welsh wording automatically per student, based on which language their own feedback comment is written in (see the Feedback tab help page). Edit a .Welsh row here to correct or improve a translation.
<Tab>.<List>.Search	Turns the instant-search box on (yes) or off (no) for a particular list, e.g. AssessmentTab.GradeList.Search. Only the two cohort lists (Results/Feedback tabs) have this on by default.
ResultsTab.AnonymousMarkingOption	On by default - shows the anonymous-marking checkbox on the Results tab. Set to no to hide it.
ModuleTab.StudentList.AllowEdits	On by default - allows the imported cohort to be edited directly on the Module tab. Set to no to prevent accidental edits.
_AUTO_WRITE_REGULAR_BACKUP	On by default - see "Auto backups" in the Introduction. Set to no to turn it off, e.g. if switching students or tabs feels sluggish on a slow machine.
_FONT_SIZE_ADJUSTMENT	Accessibility font-size adjustment - 0 is normal size, the default of -1 is slightly smaller/more compact, positive values are larger.
_INSET_SIZE	Pixels of white space around components - lower for more screen space on a small display, higher for a more spacious look.
_FEEDBACK_ITEM_SEPARATOR	The text inserted between combined feedback items - a single space by default; set to \n to put each item on its own line.
_EMAIL_HOST_OUTGOING _EMAIL_SENDER_ADDRESS _EMAIL_ADDRESS_DOMAIN	The default outgoing mail server, sender address, and student email domain used when sending feedback (see the Feedback tab).

Starting over

There's no "reset to default" button for an individual row yet. To reset everything at once, close MFA and delete MFAProperties.txt (see "Where MFAProperties.txt lives" above for exactly which folder that is) - the built-in defaults take over immediately, and a fresh copy of the file is written the next time you click Save on this tab.