The Past Haunts the Present

[sglamantia]

This topic is a quick, short digression from the "Can DOpus compare two collections?" thread, which I'm currently involved in. In that thread, Leo had posted a screen snag of his Edit menu, and I was floored by it because my own Edit menu was Mickey Mouse compared to his Goliath. (In that thread, see Leo's 10 Jun 2011 05:04 post and then my 05:34 response to see what I'm referring to.)

That wild discrepancy between our Edit menus made me wonder about something.

As I had mentioned in my post in that thread,

Over the years that I've had DOpus, I've rarely changed any of the menus, instead making extensive use of toolbars and buttons, so I don't think it's the case that I've somehow deleted a slew of items from the Edit menu. (But who knows?)

However, it's plain to see from our menus that they are drastically different. And my prescient "who knows?" notwithstanding, I stand by my assertion that I rarely change any of my menus.

Which brought me to a startling thought, that I may have been inadvertantly slitting my own throat by being conscientious. I routinely save my DOpus configuration via Settings | Backup and Restore. And whenever I install a new version of DOpus, I make doubly sure to first back everything up just prior to the install. I then install the new version, and then I immediately run a DOpus Restore in order to make everything I've meticulously set up available to me in the new version.

All well and good, I always thought, but is it possible that by being so conscientious about this procedure of mine that I've managed to bring forth to the present day what may have been the configuration of the Edit menu many years and perhaps several DOpus versions ago? Can it be the case that I've blindly denied myself the wonders and joys and thrilling delights of new commands that live on the new seriously beefed up menus?

While I was contemplating this possibility, and bemoaning my fate, and partaking of the pity pot, and otherwise thoroughly woe-is-me-ing, I then saw the following post in the "Your old toolbars are still there after you install Opus 10" thread in the FAQs section. (Yeah, THAT FAQ section; you know, the one that says, "Please Read First". Ack! )

The new default toolbars and menus expose a lot of new and once-hidden functionality, so we wanted everyone to at least look at them to discover some of what's new. It is also difficult to detect how much each person has customized and whether or not they'd want to use/try the new defaults, so we always go with the new defaults and let you turn the old ones back on if you want to.

Lord, I wonder what else I've been missing? Good grief! O wa ta na siam!

-- Steve

[Leo]

It's only in Opus 10 that a significant amount of changes were done to the default toolbars/menus, so you won't have missed on on much for very long.

The Opus 10 default toolbars always exist (within the program itself even if you delete the versions on disk), so you can always turn them on to see what's in them.

[sglamantia]

Thanks, Leo. Both of your points are very good news.

I'm currently running v 10.0.0.4. If I now install v 10.0.0.6, will all the new stuff come bursting to the fore? (Assuming, of course, that I don't immediately run a Restore of my old stuff.)

(My guess is no, that it happens only when jumping up a major version. But then again, I'm not exactly hitting home runs with my recent assumptions, am I?)

-- Steve

[Leo]

Installing 10.* over another 10.* will keep the existing config as-is, but you just need to turn on the default toolbars. The three of them are in a separate category at the top of the toolbar list.