User Profile Manager & Settings

Biscottina

I am very new to BricsCAD and I have installed the trial version V17. Changing the settings was easy enough, but I can't get them to "stick". They keep reverting to the default settings once I exit the program. I have tried many different things and I must be missing a small step somewhere.

I created a new profile in the User Profile Manager, made changes to settings (dimension changes, turn off UCS, etc.), exported user profile. I then exited BricsCAD, opened it back up, started a new drawing and the changes to the settings are not held. I imported the *.arg file, still the settings are back to default. It shows the correct user profile checked, but the changes do not hold once I exit the program.

What am I missing?

Thanks for your help!

drewbags

Which platform are you on? Windows/Mac/Linux?

Roy Klein Gebbinck

Many variables are stored in the drawing. Changing these variables only makes sense if you then save the drawing (as a template).

Biscottina

@drewbags said:
Which platform are you on? Windows/Mac/Linux?

Windows 8

Biscottina

@Roy Klein Gebbinck said:
Many variables are stored in the drawing. Changing these variables only makes sense if you then save the drawing (as a template).

We use the same dimension variables in all of our drawings. Is there a better way to store dimension styles that will "keep" outside of the drawing I am currently using?

Roy Klein Gebbinck

Best practice is to create one or more template files with the desired settings, dimension styles, text styles, layers, title blocks etc. And then select the correct template whenever you want to start a new drawing.

You can use the BASEFILE variable to specify the template for the _Qnew command.

Nigel Protter

Templates are not always the answer. "Best practice" is a way of justifying past practice as sacrosanct. If a user wishes to do things differently, perhaps to improve on "best practice", then "best practice" ideology becomes a ball and chain.

For example, although it is not typical, it is entirely reasonable to want to load a complete collection of document and program settings and also workspace GUI settings overtop of an existing drawing and/or work environment for all kinds of reasons that may not jibe with "traditional" AutoCAD workflows. But BricsCAD does not support this. And BricsCAD questions why we might want to do so in the first place. In a word, software vendors for this type of software, which is essentially a professional realtime code interpreter with visual feedback, should let users "hack" if they want or need to.

1/ BricsCAD cannot reload an exported .csv settings file (both program and document settings). Why not? While this might introduce scaling and other problems in a file if a user is unaware, a professional user should be able to do what they want to do in this case, for any reason at all. Being able to do so would not break AutoCAD compatibility, rather it would extend it.

2/ .arg files and the user profile manager are a UI and workflow mess, and often times seem to break. I often do not get what I expect when I load an .arg file. I suspect they are buggy. And the fact that a second instance of BricsCAD has to be launched to activate a different user profile if already in BricsCAD obviously leads to the potential for a large mess in .arg settings as two instances must now compete for canonical primacy establishing settings. We don't and can't know which instance wins because for one thing it depends on the user keeping things straight, but also BricsCAD surely writes settings in the background as part of its internal housekeeping.

3/ What about the mess that is loading "full versus partial" .cui files, and how and when to use them, or not to? There is much contradictory advice on this in the BricsCADS help files, tutorial, forums, support feedback, and "Customizing BricsCAD" document. Outdated advice for deprecated protocols and workflows is not deleted from the BricsCAD forums, which makes matters worse.

4/ The official recommendation to use the invisible ".settings" file (Mac version, which is analogous to BricsCAD registry files in Windows version) as your ironclad backup and restore Hail-Mary settings file is ridiculous. In the first place, why do we have three completely different and unconnected ways to save and restore any part or all of overall user interface and program/document behaviour? Second, why should one have to use (on Mac at least) the terminal to manipulate invisible system files (except .settings isn't really a system file so why is it invisible and not user-facing in the first place?) on a regular basis to back up user preferences, when user preferences are so important and so time consuming to establish?

5/ I get that AutoCAD compatibility is a must for BrcsCAD. But also we all know BricsCAD extends far beyond AutoCAD in so many ways that I plaintively suggest its time for Bricsys to consolidate all user settings of all kinds into a modern, trouble free unified environmental and document settings system that is straightforward, comprehensive, logical, reliable, and clearly documented.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@Nigel Protter:
I have read you contribution with interest but not everything you say resonates with me. Then again much of it is not directed at the average member of this forum but at the BricsCAD development team. I therefore advise you to send in a feature request.

Claiming that a certain approach is 'best practice' does not mean it is set in stone. Or that alternative approaches should not be pursued. But I will reiterate: having up-to-date templates is plain common sense.

If you find faulty or obsolete information in a forum thread I urge you to post your findings in that thread. If only to inform and warn other forum members.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

... I forgot to attach a small Lips program that I have just created: ImportSettings.lsp.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

Nigel Protter

Thanks for the Lisp program. I see you have some safety filtering built-in. What about also filtering out settings arguments that are local file directories or URLs?

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@Nigel Protter:
Here is an updated version of ImportSettings.lsp.
I have revised the code and added a SkipValStr argument.
SkipValStr: Values to skip as string or nil, wild-cards allowed, case-insensitve.
This allows to skip paths as demonstrated by the c:ImportSettingsUserValues_SkipPaths function.

fmhemmer

I am faced with having to move from AutoCAD Land Desktop 2004 to BricsCAD v18 on multiple workstations. I need to be able to give my staff a basic unified workspace environment which they can then customize for simple preferences such as icon size/location and command line font. Is there, in fact, a method to do this so that the settings can be both imported and exported as we refine the standard environment? This would be similar to Import/Export of Profiles in ACAD.

Jason Bourhill

@fmhemmer said:
I am faced with having to move from AutoCAD Land Desktop 2004 to BricsCAD v18 on multiple workstations. I need to be able to give my staff a basic unified workspace environment which they can then customize for simple preferences such as icon size/location and command line font. Is there, in fact, a method to do this so that the settings can be both imported and exported as we refine the standard environment? This would be similar to Import/Export of Profiles in ACAD.

BricsCAD allows you to take a similar approach to AutoCAD through the use of profiles. Once a profile is created, it is even possible to push it out to multiple users through the use of a command line script (Batch file or similar). There are however a few key differences to be aware of.

Profiles
In BricsCAD changes to profile related settings aren't committed until you close the application down, including switching to a new profile. Because of this I don't recommend using the User Profile Manager from within BricsCAD, for creating new profiles, or exporting profiles. Instead, I've found it simpler to create a new profile by:

• First make sure that BricsCAD is not running.
• Launch the User Profile Manager from the Windows Start menu.
• Create my new profile name.
• Double click on it to set the new profile as current, and launch BricsCAD using it.
• Configure the profile with the settings that I want to use, exiting and re-starting BricsCAD as required to commit changes, and to confirm that they are correct.

Once you have the profile setup, Import/Export is a similar process.
To Export:

• First make sure that BricsCAD is not running.
• Launch the User Profile Manager from the Windows Start menu.
• Select the new profile name.
• Pick the 'Export...' button to export.

To Import:

• First make sure that BricsCAD is not running.
• Launch the User Profile Manager from the Windows Start menu.
• Pick the 'Import...' button to import, and select you previously created profile.
• Double click on imported profile to set it as current, and launch BricsCAD using it.

As mentioned in the previous posts, settings are saved to a variety of locations. It is useful when running SETTINGS to check where a setting is saved to by looking at the bottom left of the settings dialogue during selection. Essentially anything that states "Profile" , or "Registry" can be controlled via a profile. Anything that states "Drawing" can be controlled via a template.

Regards,
Jason Bourhill
CAD Concepts

Roy Klein Gebbinck

Although the .arg files produced by the Profile Manager have improved over time, you should always check for username related settings. In an .arg fle produced by BricsCAD V18.1.09 I find 4 path entries that contain my username (in a DOS 8.3 format). Before 'rolling out' an .arg file such references should be replaced by the %USERNAME% placeholder I believe.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

An improved version of ImportSettings.lsp:
; 20180101: Values pointing to paths that do not exist are skipped. ; 20180101: Paths containing the loginname stored in the CSV file are translated to ; the current loginname. All occurences of the old name are translated. ; 20180101: Renamed an argument. ; 20171222: Added "CPROFILE" and "WSCURRENT" warning to the alert message.

Tim Neumann

Roy or Jason - Don't mean to beat a dead horse but please explain what would be the correct way to go about this following scenario:

1. Upgraded to V18 from V16. Was able to keep toolbar locations/workspaces the same sticking to profile from V16.
2. The downside to this is I don't have the updated toolbars/menu items. So I tried to bring in the default.cui as a partial but got an error so
   loaded the default.cui as main and loaded my custom.cui as partial & got the latest toolbars and etc. but had to re-organize it to suit.
3. Once I got everything nice and tidy I created a profile and saved/exported it. Also saved the default.cui as custom in another directory.
   Now when I update again what is the correct way to efficiently do this? Thanks ahead for any input.

Patrik Sparrman

Hi, I have to bring this back up. Im now moving 7 users up to V18 and its a pain.
How come its still produced an .arg file with user specific paths? Would it be difficult to export with wildcards , I don't want to have to hack the file every time. Some of the users are still on W7 and others on W10 this also messes things up. ALSO I have made a partial cui BUT I have also made som minor changes to the standard menus and toolbars . This I have to manually redo on all computers as far as I see. I have pushed the toolbars around from default and this seems impossible to transfer in an easy way.
Every once in a while you have to update the original CUI tho get new features but it would be nice to be able to export the edited features.
Preferably I would like to export all deviations from default settings and then import them back.
Roy and Jason thanks for trying but really this should be simplified from another source. @Roy Klein Gebbinck exactly what is your lisp importing ? is it the export file?
Patrik

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@Patrik Sparrman:
Yes, the Lisp code will import all non-dwg related setting from a CSV file exported by the _Settings command.

This may be useful:
https://forum.bricsys.com/discussion/33376/migrating-profiles-and-workspaces-to-get-an-identical-user-interface-on-multiple-machines

Roy Klein Gebbinck

Now available: BKG_Settings.
It offers two commands: BKG_SettingsImport and BKG_SettingsCompare.

Note: The code I have attached in this thread does not parse the .csv file properly. This was fixed in BKG_Settings.