Submitted by WayneK on 2022/04/09 00:28

I really thought I understood how to preserve my toolbar set up but I've lost it again.  I'm sure it happened because yesterday I using opening old versions of InfoQube trying to get copy-special to work.

I'd appreciate advice on what I did wrong.

1) I had four files open. 

2) Files #1 and #2 had the correct toolbars.

3) Files #3 and #4 had the wrong toolbars.

4) I closed files 2, 3, and 4.

5) I closed file #1 last because this is the set up I wanted to keep.  My understanding was that the toolbar set up is preserved by the last file closed.

6) But when I re-opened #1 it had the wrong toolbars.

7) To further confuse things, I opened another file and it did have the right set up.  Then I opened a third file and it had a still different and wrong set up.

So right now I'm totally confused about how to preserve my toolbars.  There's no point in fixing them until I figure out how to keep it from happening again.

Wayne

120Pre2 (full installation), Win 10

Comments

Hi Wayne,

When you asked about using different versions of IQ, I said that the data would be safe. Toolbar setup is something else though.

With Portable IQ, toolbar customizations are saved under the following path: Program path\Users\WayneK

So if you've used 2 different portable IQ, each one will have separate toolbar setup. Toolbar setup is NOT linked to specific files.

In your original post, the missing information (for files 1-4) is with what IQ version instance these were opened with.

Pierre

Yes, I'm aware of the difference between installed and portable versions regarding toolbars.  All of the described problems happened using my current installed version (120Pre2).

I did briefly use an old portable version and also an old installed version from another drive. In both cases I closed out those files, THEN closed the open current version (120Pre2) to make sure my toolbars were preserved.

I'm 100% sure sure that the last file closed had the toolbars I wanted.  I then immediately re-opened that same file and the toolbars had reverted to another arrangement. 

I then re-created a new toolbar set up using just one file open.  I closed the file, re-opened it, and the toolbar set up was lost again.

It seems to be back to working now.  I've created a new toolbar and it's been preserved through several open/close cycles. 

I had lots of trouble with lost toolbars early on, maybe 5+ years ago.  Since then everything has been absolutely fine except the two times I tried to use old versions of InfoQube.

The lesson for me is to set up a procedure where I can more easily restore my toolbars manually (I made a screen cap and made a list of the tools I want left to right).

I'm ok with just leaving things as they are.  I'll re-open this if the problem recurs.

 

Toolbars continue to misbehave for unknown reasons.  Just something for you to watch for in case you run across it yourself.  

When I open a file,  I never know if it's going to have my custom toolbars or the default ones.  It seems to vary randomly.  To get my custom toolbars back, I have to repeatedly close and re-open the files until finally they show up again.

 

 

 

Just lost toolbars again, immediately after updating to 120Pre7.  This time it wiped out the new personal toolbar I created thinking that might be more secure than editing the existing toolbars.  It's no longer in the list of toolbars.

It's happened a few other times since April.  In those cases, I eventually got my set up to re-appear by repeatedly opening and closing files.  Doesn't look like that's going to work this time.

I can't remember if I sent you the menu.dat file.

Key question = can I use the menu.dat file for back up? 

If I set up my toolbars again, then copy the menu.dat file to another location, can I use that to restore the correct toolbars when I lose them?

That would be a huge help vs having to manually re-create them.

I don't know if this played a role but I had the Welcome file open shortly before this happened.

Wayne

120Pre7

Spent 20 minutes reconstructing my toolbars.  Closed the file, and re-opened.  They were gone again. 

Closed and re-opened a second time, and they're back for the moment.  No idea when they'll show up or not show up at this point. 

Lost toolbars again when I closed and re-opened the file. 

Was able to restore them from a Menu.dat back up.  I'm happy with that solution because recreating these things from scratch was a pain.

Also lost my custom shortcuts with this update but was able to get them back with Tools>Keyboard shortcuts>Load custom shortcuts>All.Shortcuts.tab.  I also backed up this file in case I need it in the future.

I'm sure this is all simple stuff for many but for the average user it's a fairly tedious process to work through.

Suggestion:

1) Provide a "backup settings" command in Options, and a "restore settings" command where you can pick from various past backup dates. 

2) Or, just put the settings backup steps in the user manual section on database backups.

Wayne

Just lost my toolbars again, though only about half of them this time.  Happened when I updated from 120Pre11 to 120Pre13.  This time when I replaced the Menu.Dat file with my back up, it failed to recover all the lost tools.

I think the problem is that some of the tools were on the left side menu toolbar.

What do I need to back up for the menu toolbar?  MenuHTML.Dat?  Are there any other files that control toolbars?

Really thought I had this covered with the Menu.Dat back up.  I'll create the set up again and back up both Menu.Dat and MenuHTML.Dat.

Wayne

Lost my toolbars again.  Happens every time I update (and is the number 1 reason I don't like to update).

Thought I had a reasonable solution by backing up Menu.Dat and MenuHTML.Dat, but that didn't work this time.  When the file comes up it looks like the correct toolbar shows up for just a second, and that is replaced by some default toolbar.

edit: happened after updating from 120Pre13 to Pre21

Wayne

Win 10, 120Pre13

Update: have replaced the .dat files repeatedly but it always reverts to the default toolbars.  Don't understand why this won't work.

 

I know I've brought this up before, but it would be a big help if re-creating toolbars was easier. 

Suggestions

1) Provide a search box for finding commands. (by the way, the command scrollbar isn't working when you drag the slider button).

2) Provide a way to save commands (eg by providing a user-defined category where you can save your commands to quickly recreate toolbars).

Wayne

Thanks Wayne,

In the next version, a dialog will be shown when there is a conflict with a system update. You'll be able to choose to use your toolbars !

  • New: Menu bars: If a system update is in conflict with user's menus, a dialog is now shown to keep current or reset

Pierre_Admin

I updated and it did preserve the tool arrangement.  I'm grateful for that and happy with it. 

It did lose the formatting of the tool icons but that's not a big deal (I had similar tools grouped by color). 

Wayne

Win10, 120Pre24

How do I ?