[Bf-funboard] Saving User Settings

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Here how it works (technically);

- the entire interface (Screens) is always saved in each .blend file.
- a 'Screen' is just another library object, just like 'Mesh' or  
'Texture' etc.
- so (not coded yet) interfaces can be appended from other files too

- apart from Screens, there's also a 'UserData' block in Blender.
- the UserData settings are visible in the 'Info' window.
- the UserData *only* is saved in a file called $HOME/.B.blend

(Matt: what you experienced is a mystery for me, or a bug?)
(Kent: when Blender starts, it reads UserData from the laptop $HOME, it  
should not read NumPad defaults from regular .blend files.)

The convention how we treat UserData is not real issue I think. Having  
a default startup .blend file is not an issue either. What we can  
improve is:

- naming it differently ("save user template" and "load user template"  
or so)
- allowing Screens to be loaded from other files (SHIFT+F1)
- make a load option "don't load UI from file)

Could that help?

-Ton-

On Tuesday, Sep 16, 2003, at 17:29 Europe/Amsterdam, Matt Ebb wrote:

> One thing that can annoy me about it is that the settings are saved in  
> the
> specific file that's open. I have encountered this in recent work when  
> I've
> opened an older .blend with different settings (in particular, auto  
> save was
> turned off.) and worked on it, expecting it to autosave, which is how  
> my
> current .b.blend is set up. However of course it wasn't autosaving,  
> which
> meant when I experimented messing around and experimenting and  
> modifying
> stuff as usual, I couldn't hit autosave to get back to where I was,  
> and I
> lost a fair bit of work :(
>
> I know it's easy to say for this sort of thing "user error" "check the  
> docs"
> "you should know what settings are set" but it's annoying when it's so  
> easy
> to make a mess of things like this, just through small mistakes.
>
> Matt
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <jp@nuance9.com>
> To: <bf-funboard@blender.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 12:25 AM
> Subject: [Bf-funboard] Saving User Settings
>
>
>> I like the ideas others expressed about including some default screen
> setups, especially
>> the aspect of using more descriptive identifiers than screen.001, etc.
>>
>> Here is something that kind of annoys me about "CTRL-U" - Save User
> Defaults.
>>
>> When I first came upon that command, don't remember how that happened,
> what I
>> expected it to do was save the UI settings and setup that I had  
>> rearranged
> and was
>> comfortable with as the default.  That is a handy function.
>>
>> After using it I noticed some strange things.  If I went to File >  
>> New, it
> would ask me if I
>> want to Erase All, and I would select yes - and then my screen would
> refresh with this
>> old model of mine in the workspace.  Also everytime I opened Blender  
>> that
> same model
>> would be there. I would wonder "where did that come from", and for  
>> quite a
> while
>> assumed it was just a Blender bug.  I eventually realized that the  
>> CTRL-U
> apparently
>> saved EVERYTHING about the current state including the current model.
>>
>> Personally I think that is kind of confusing.  Maybe it is just me.   
>> But
> personally I would
>> find it more useful to be able to set the default settings / screen  
>> layout
> WITHOUT
>> importing the current model as well.
>>
>> What do others think?
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Justin Pease
>> N u a n c e   N i n e
>> Web Usability, Development and Design
>> www.nuance9.com
>>
>>
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>
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------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org  
http://www.blender.org