Where are personal settings stored

[Tony Bouttell]

Every once in a while, SA stops responding to pen input, and I have to shut it down.

When I start it up again, SA acts like I started it up the first time, -all my personal settings have disappeared, and the default layout is my only selection possible.

Where does SA keep those preference settings? I'd like to restore them from by backup, or at least copy them to a safe location.

Thanks

[Synthetik]

OK, let's address the 'stops responding to pen input' issue first.

Are you on mac, or windows? And if mac, running the 32 bit app, or the 64 bit app?

So we are aware of this issue that apple introduced on an osx update. That i think might be causing the issue you are running into.

The way you can make it happen is by undoing your complete undo stack, and then running another additional undo command after that. So, if you look at the Edit : Undo menu before you do this, it won't be active since the undo stack is empty. So you can't run the menu command directly from the menu bar. 

But another way to run that menu command is by using the cmd z hot key combination for that menu. And the bug apple introduced allows you to run the cmd key combo for the undo menu even if the menu is not active.

The framework we use then hiccups when that non existing undo command is run. And it appears to the user like Studio Artist is no longer responding to pen or mouse downs in the canvas area after you do that.

To fix it, just leave Studio Artist to another application, and then come back. So click on an open browser window, or press the dock icon with some other application that is open. Then immediately go back to Studio Artist.  Mouse or pen down interaction in the canvas is restored.

This is not an issue in the next update, just with current V5.

...

I also have an idea what is going on with your user preferences going missing and the app then resorting to the initial default startup preference settings the next time you run the app.

There is a secret feature in V5 where if you hold down the z key when you quit the program, the user preference file is deleted. We added this feature to aid in beta testing of who the application will startup the first time you run it. So rather then hunting down the preference file in the file system, we can just use this hot key to simulate the user running it for the first time when the preference file is not yet on their computer.

The way event processing works on modern computers, you get a key down event, and then at some later point in time, a key up event.  If something steals away or otherwise interferes with the key up event for a particular key so that Studio Artist never sees it, then Studio Artist is going to assume the user is still holding that key down.

And the apple introduced bug i mentioned above can also effect the z keyup event after you run cmd z after you have used up all of your undos in the undo stack.  So if you then quit the program, Studio Artist is going to think you were manually still holding down that z key as the program quits. So the 'feature' i mentioned kicks in, and the user preference file is deleted.

If you have a defective keyboard, you can also run into this issue with the user preference file mysteriously disappearing at random times.

...

Ok, so where is that Studio Artist user preference file stored anyway.

It's stored away in a magical 'secret' location that apple dreamed up. Inside of the Library folder in your user directory.

So in Users/yourname/Library/Preferences

Of course when you look in your user directory, you aren't going to see the Library directory listed there, unless you have the finder configured to show hidden files and hidden directories. Because apple in their infinite wisdom have decided the Library directory and it's contents should be hidden from normal mac users. Because magical secret things are hidden away in there?

The actual Studio Artist 5 user preference file is in there, and is named com.synthetik.StudioArtist5.plist

The weird naming convention again is more apple infinite wisdom.

If it was up to me, i'd just stick it in the main Studio Artist folder so it was easy to find.

Apple of course would like to force us to hide away all of the Studio Artist preset and brush files in similar hidden secret locations, to make user management of those files ridiculously complex.  And may push the issue in some future os update, forcing us to do this.

[Tony Bouttell]

And that’s exactly what happened. Too many undos.
I’d forgotten that /Users/Username/Library/... had Plist files..
Thanks for the detailed response!