How does the "Saved Preferences" option work? There is a "Saved Pref" list in "Settings" menu but I don't know how to populate it. I tried moving some exported settings into the previously empty "Config" directory under the parent Directory Opus folder. But, that still didn't show anything in the menu list. I checked help and all it told me was that it would show a list of exported preferences. How do I populate that with settings files?
Save your preferences using the Preferences menu in the Prefs dialog. These should be saved as .dpf files into the config folder.
Okay, got it now. Thank you.
I have to say that this is not too intuitive. I searched around the preferences dialog box for over 20 minutes looking for this, not realizing that the word "preferences" at the top was actually a dropdown menu. No underlined accelerator letter to indicate it was a menu. I've probably looked at that a hundred times not realizing that "preferences" in the "preferences" dialog was anything other than a title. No mention of saving preferences in the Help file either, only how to retrieve them.
Now that I've found it, it brings up another question. What does "Restore Page Settings" mean? No mention of that in the Help file either. (at least that I could find)
Like everything else in Windows (assuming that 'hide accelerator keys' is turned on) pressing ALT will reveal the accelerator key.
Page 37 of the Opus pdf manual explains the Restore function (as well as the other items in the preferences menu). There's even a picture of the menu.
Either way... isn't this prefs savings system the 'old way' of saving prefs? The Settings->Import and Export utility saves 'more' than just the prefs right?
To my understanding, the new way of saving preferences makes use of the old way--a .dps file is actually a .zip file that contains .dpf files and the folders with other Opus configuration items: images, filters, toolbars, et cetera.
But if one wants to utilize the Preferences list to quickly switch between various Opus Preferences Configurations, the old way of exporting Preferences to a .dpf file is required.
I purchased my v8.x licenses three days after release, but didn't actually install it on my primary PC until about a year ago, mainly because I had put so much work into my v6.x configurations and toolbars, much of which needed to be completely re-done in v8.x. I also wanted to read the entire manual cover-cover first before running off half-cocked. (Good thing too or I never would've gotten Folder Formats the first time.)
In v6.x, I used the Preferences Menu quiet extensively. I kept the out-of-the-box preferences as one saved file, so I could easily see how GPSoftware configured things by default. I would also have at least my current working preferences as well as one or two test preferences for trying out different settings. When I first started playing with v8.x a year ago, I noticed my Preferences List wasn't being populated with saving my .dps files (similar to edbro9).
Up until this thread started, I had not attempted in Opus v8.x to use the Preferences Menu. I had much bigger Opus fish to fry to look any deeper into the issue. And, I found that I could just as easily save a .dps file for every configuration I wanted to keep. The new way of saving Preferences is a vast improvement, since everything can be saved. However, the old Preferences Menu is a worthy feature.
I would agree that, for a new comer, importing and exporting Preferences is not exactly the most intuitive part of Opus, in part because the Raw Command Prefs documentation doesn't draw any distinction between which options make use of a .dps file and which makes use of a .dpf file.
The Import & Export functionality is a superset of the Preferences save/load functionality. Opus probably doesn't need both and it'd simplify things a little to remove the redundant stuff but it was useful for compatibility with Opus 6 while that was important.
In case any Opus 6 users are reading, you can import your Opus 6 configuration and toolbars into Opus 8 fine.
It's recommended that you use the new toolbars as a starting point and copy over any custom buttons from your old toolbars to the new ones. That way you get the new items added to the Opus 8 default toolbars as well as new versions of old items (where an argument to a command may be used by default when it wasn't before). It's not required, though.
Actually, I'm quite familiar with both systems of saving settings. It was more of a rhetorical question to basically segue into conversation about the fact that there was a more comprehensive 'save settings' mechanism than the older prefs interface 
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