I downloaded Peerunity a few weeks ago. I can see and use all the menu commands (send, receive, unlock for minting, etc.) but I do not understand how to use coin control and monitor coin age. There seems to be no section for these parts
Can someone explain? Thanks
Coin control is considered as an advanced function, so it is not activated by default.
To activate it, go to the settings->options->display menu, and check the “Display coin control features” box.
Now in the “send coins” tab, you should see the “Inputs…” button to select the transaction outputs you want to use.
Many thanks, just had a look and found it.
So, if I want to send some coins, I just tick the box alongside those which have the lowest number of block confirmations (or the lowest “priority”) to ensure I am sending coins with the lowest coin age?
When you send a Peercoin transaction you send all the coins from the address selected. The coins now go to the address owned by the one you are paying and an address for change wich belong to you. In this process you destroy all coin age for the address you are sending from. Since coin age is a function of number of coins in an address and time, you need to do some calculations or check CDA for each address on https://peerchain.co/. Only this way you can know how to preserve as much coin age as possible. I hope we can get a tab that shows coin age into coin control in the future.
This is not totally accurate. Coin-age is associated transactions. An address can have many transactions (e.g. you withdraw many times from a pool to the same address), which can and often do have different coin-ages. With coincontrl you can select the oldest unspent transactions to be sent.
Yes it would be nice to have coin-age shown in the coincontrol tab. The “priority” shown is really for letting the miners pack your transaction with high priority. The next version will have a minting table that shows coin-age of all unspent transactions.
The coin control panel includes an option to choose a "change address. I suppose any address controlled by the user will do - but is there any reason or advantage in choosing a particular address for receiving change?
I think it’s for managing privacy. If you don’t want the blockchain to show that coins of two of your incoming transactions are owned by the same person, you don’t want to spend them together, nor do you want their changes spent together. Coincontrol lets you manage where the changes go easily.
AFAIK, the change address must be an address that is contained in the wallet (i.e. you can’t use it to create a 3rd party transaction). Yes, I’ve tried it. 
When coin age is destroyed in order to mint a block, how do I know this has happened - does the client inform me, or do I keep an eye on the coin age, looking for one that has been reduced to zero?
Similarly, if I get the 1% of extra peercoins, do they just appear as a transaction in the wallet, or do I have to do something?
Thanks
When you mint a block, you will see a transaction to yourself of the amount of the reward appear in the transaction list.
In the transactions tab, the ‘type’ column will indicate that the coins come from minting.
Two more questions, please:
On the Overview tab, underneath my balance, there is “Stake” - what does that refer to?
The far right-hand tab is Export - what does that do which is different from creating a back up?
Thanks
Edit - Apparently I don’t know what i’m talking about so I’ve removed the offending info. The following is accurate though. 
I do know for sure that the export tab is used to export data from the wallet. You can use it with the receive coins, transactions, and address book buttons on the wallet. Clicking export will allow you to create a CSV file with the data from one of those three pages. This can come in handy if you want to create a backup of that information outside of the wallet. The “back up” option backs up your wallet. The wallet contains your private keys and is used to access your Peercoins. If you lose your wallet, you lose your Peercoins. Make sure it’s encrypted, and back it up in multiple locations.
In my Coin Control panel, I have coins dated from April, May and early June 2014, i.e. longer than 30 days
Yet, my stake reads “0.00 PPC”, so none of these coins are minting, even though I have unlocked the client for minting purposes.
How do I get coins over 30 days to become “stake” that is actively minting? Thanks
Coins don’t move to the “Stake” balance until after you have solved a block. That’s where they remain for the 520 confirmation period that you aren’t able to move them.
If you have unlocked the client for minting, all eligible coins will automatically be used for minting, unless you set a reserve balance. The “Stake” balance should be 0 most of the time.
[quote=“RobertLloyd, post:13, topic:2636”]In my Coin Control panel, I have coins dated from April, May and early June 2014, i.e. longer than 30 days
Yet, my stake reads “0.00 PPC”, so none of these coins are minting, even though I have unlocked the client for minting purposes.
How do I get coins over 30 days to become “stake” that is actively minting? Thanks[/quote]
As long as your wallet is unlocked for minting everything is fine. When you actually mint coins you will receive them under transactions just like you would a normal transaction. The coins used to mint the block and the newly made coins will be under ‘stake’ and unavailable for 520 blocks (3.5 days).