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(182/201) 3564159 - Show a dialog that informs the user about move of settings

I have seen it several times that a user wanted to try a 5.0preX or 5.0 nightly build.
After that he wanted to use 4.x again and wondered that all his settings and plugins are lost.
This is on Windows as we moved the standard place for the settings directory to be %APPDATA%\\jEdit instead of %USERPROFILE%\\.jedit as it is a more appropriate place for Windows.

As far as I remember we move the settings directory on first start of a 5.0.x to the new location.
But as the 4.x version doesn\'t know about this it starts with a pristine settings directory and the user thinks his settings and plugins are lost.

Maybe we should show an information dialog that explains what to do to use 4.x again or even a question dialog that allows to say no to the move which causes the settings directory to be used in the old place and the dialog shown again on next start or something similar.
This way a user can first try 5.x to decide whether he wants to roll-back or not and can easily switch back to 4.x.

I set this up as severe bug with prio 7 as I think this is rather important as we move the settings directory without any notification.
This looks for the user like he looses his settings and plugins.
And if he has set up something with that location like an automatic sync to different machines or an automated backup, then this is also broken if he doesn't get informed about the move of settings directory.

I think this should get fixed and merged before 5.0.0 is released.

Submitted vampire0 - 2012-09-02 - 15:02:01z Assigned nobody
Priority 7 Category editor core
Status Open Group severe bug
Resolution None Visibility No

Comments

2012-09-27 - 21:31:16z
ezust
Downgrading to 4.5 is not supported because another thing that is done as part of migration to 5.0 is the moving of shortcuts out of properties and into keymaps. So if the user wants to downgrade, it's not really an option anyway.

The user can manually copy properties/jars back into the old location and then have 2 separate settings directories, one for 4.5 and one for 5.x

Anyway, I am not going to do this, so unless you can find someone else to volunteer, this is probably not going to happen before 5.0's release.
2012-09-28 - 17:14:36z
snarum-micron
It seems like a dirt-simple solution would have been to *COPY* the settings to the new location, rather than move them, then pop a dialog telling what changed and asking if the user want to clean up the old location (destructive, but could delete to the recycle bin) or leave them to allow dual rev (though with separate settings that aren't synchronized.)
2012-09-28 - 17:57:15z
vampire0
It is not THAT dirt-simple as the settings relocation is done before everything is initialized, right after the splash screen is initially shown. But basically I like suggestion of snarum-micron.
To be robust we would have to store in some property that the dialog needs to be shown and then after everything is initialized properly, show the info dialog and reset the property. Then the dialog is shown even if between settings relocation and dialog showing jEdit is killed or chrashes.
The info dialog should maybe also mention that you can delete the new location to have it re-migrated in case one wanted to try a pre-release before and wants to do the real switch later by migrating his latest settings.
2012-09-28 - 18:23:50z
snarum-micron

Steve <==== Guilty of frequently assuming someone else's work is going to be simple! :-)

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