Remember settings without closing TVP

[Soom]

I often leave TVPaint open for days cause I am working on big scenes, with lot's of open files, like model sheets, props, etc. But unfortunately TVPaint does crash sometimes, especially when I leave it through the night. I wouldn't mind it so much, if TVPaint would remember all my settings and custom panels, that were created during this session, but it doesn't. So every time TVPaint crashes, I loose all the new custom settings. I can't afford closing and opening TVPaint every time I create a new button, just to make sure it is saved here in case of a crash.
Please make TVPaint automatically save settings.

[Paul Fierlinger]

+1

But I believe this is a hard thing to program. Vegas had this same problem for a long time, until they solved it by having the session remembered ALMOST in its entirety -- the last couple of moves have to be recreated upon reopening and most people are happy with this solution.

[slowtiger]

It's the same problem in Photoshop: when the program or the computer crashes, all new settings are lost.

What about having a popup appear whenever I add something to a bin, like a brush, asking me "save now"? Would this be possible, is it practicable?

[Soom]

It's the same problem in Photoshop: when the program or the computer crashes, all new settings are lost.

What about having a popup appear whenever I add something to a bin, like a brush, asking me "save now"? Would this be possible, is it practicable?

Hmm - I think it's not the case any more with Photoshop - I am on CS6 and it never looses anything anymore, unless I didn't notice. Also Flash never forgets settings, cause it writes settings immediately to some basic configuration files. For some reason it looks quite simple to me - I mean, it does remember settings when you close the program and it takes only a millisecond - how is that different from doing it while it is open?

[Paul Fierlinger]

As far as I can tell, Vegas is continuously creating backups in the background which never appears anywhere. Since it takes a little bit of time between backups, you loose just that little bit of time. The situations Soom is describing, I believe, go beyond just saving what you have completed and want to keep; it's also about saving a current tool setting which you consider temporary within your workflow -- and that's just one example. Then you might move a panel or two to be temporarily closer at hand (or at pen), nothing you would want to keep forever that way...

[Soom]

As far as I can tell, Vegas is continuously creating backups in the background which never appears anywhere. Since it takes a little bit of time between backups, you loose just that little bit of time. The situations Soom is describing, I believe, go beyond just saving what you have completed and want to keep; it's also about saving a current tool setting which you consider temporary within your workflow -- and that's just one example. Then you might move a panel or two to be temporarily closer at hand (or at pen), nothing you would want to keep forever that way...

As far as my work experience, there is no software I know of, that considers any settings change as temporary. All Adobe programs remember everything you change, and this is how it is supposed to be. In 99 % of workflows you work with some certain set of settings, which mostly doesn't change - minor displacement of panels don't count. If I ever want to revert to some default workspace, I just load it from the saved workspaces (something, that doesn't exist in TVP). Throwing away a new panel or moving around some temporary action is so much easier, than recreating it all anew! To me it looks completely obvious...

[ZigOtto]

... I can't afford closing and opening TVPaint every time I create a new button, just to make sure it is saved here in case of a crash.

you don't need to close + re-open, just save your main project before going to bed, if your custom panels are embeded,
then, you should recover all your new buttons even after a crash during the night.

... Please make TVPaint automatically save settings.

I would prefer a short key (magic number ? ) to save the tvpa actual config, automatic saving would unnecessarily hurt my workflow (and my patience, or should I say my impatience? )

[Soom]

you don't need to close + re-open, just save your main project before going to bed, if your custom panels are embeded,
then, you should recover all your new buttons even after a crash during the night.

If I embed my panels, I assume they will not be available in other projects in case of crash? Which means I will still have to open this specific project to bring them back? Besides - it doesn't sound very handy in a big production, where files go back and forth between many different instances...

I would prefer a short key (magic number ? ) to save the tvpa actual config, automatic saving would unnecessarily hurt my workflow (and my patience, or should I say my impatience? )

That is a solution too, although I can't understand how saving settings can take any time at all - when you close the program, it closes instantly - writing settings to disk doesn't take any time possible to notice - the same should be while TVP is working? unless my logical observations lack the logic

[Paul Fierlinger]

How would automatic saves hurt your workflow and impatience? You wouldn't even know its happening would you? Aren't we talking about two separate save actions; one would be the kind we have had for a long time which you can set in preferences and the other, the one TVPaint does in a hidden way to preserve its GUI array? I have noticed that there has been an improvement as of late that during rash crashes of the operating system that throws everything off its feet, TVP no longer comes back to life after a reboot with all panels scrunched on top of each other and jammed into a single monitor, at which point you have to patiently (or impatiently) take panel by panel and reset across multiple screens the way you had them before the crash. I haven't had this happen to me in a long time, so something good has been going on in this direction and I've never noticed anything getting in the way of my workflow. This can't be just a coincidence, or can it and nothing has been changed? BTW, I am talking about crashes caused by a new graphics card driver installation when I would forget to close TVP before installation, or a Wacom freeze when I have to force depower my computer.

[Mads Juul]

+1
It could be great if it somehow was possible to save the User Configuration. Without Closing TVPaint either automatic or with ar menu item/shortcur



P.S.

But unfortunately TVPaint does crash sometimes, especially when I leave it through the night.

And then it could be nice to hunt down there crash bugs

-Mads

[ZigOtto]

How would automatic saves hurt your workflow and impatience?

1)well, any "automatic" thing will hurt my mind in a way,
I like to feel the only one responsable of my driving,
I think I still have all my brain and don't want to be assisted by some "automatic" crutches
(smart or stupid, crutches stay crutches),
I know everyones now is asking for being assisted by "automatic" things, ... sorry but I'm not of this people,
f.i. when shooting some photographs with my camera, the 1rst thing I do is to turn-off any automatism,
and starting to tweak the settings manually, ... probably a way amongst others to take my time and to feel unique (or just alive ?) ...
when I want to save one thing, I want to be able to save it in the simpliest way (hitting a key f.i.),
but I don't need necessarily "someone else" to decide for me what and when I must save, with or without asking my agreement,
2) the saves delay : I'm not a developper, so, if the config file is saved just by overwriting only the last setting modification,
(or the new added button in a custom panel), it could be somehow like instantaneous,
but if saving it will re-write the entire config file, and that repeatedly, depending of your own user config, it could take some seconds ... and more
(the user config file could be rather huuuuge, specially when plenty of heavy and old Plugins installed, as my current one.)

But unfortunately TVPaint does crash sometimes, especially when I leave it through the night.

maybe some conflict between "automatic" multi-tasks running merrily here and there in the background of your system...

[Fabrice]

For some reason it looks quite simple to me - I mean, it does remember settings when you close the program and it takes only a millisecond

It's a little more complicated than that.
For instance, to make the panels quickly accessible and responsive, we keep some informations in memory and some other on the harddrive ...
That's two different managements.
When closing TVPaint, we can just replace everything on the harddrive without doing more effort.
If we want to replace thing in realtime, we need to check what is in memory, what was changed, what was not, what to keep on the hardrive etc ...
Nothing impossible, but not simple

How would automatic saves hurt your workflow and impatience?

1)well, any "automatic" thing will hurt my mind in a way,
I like to feel the only one responsable of my driving,
I think I still have all my brain and don't want to be assisted by some "automatic" crutches
(smart or stupid, crutches stay crutches),
I know everyones now is asking for being assisted by "automatic" things, ... sorry but I'm not of this people,
f.i. when shooting some photographs with my camera, the 1rst thing I do is to turn-off any automatism,
and starting to tweak the settings manually, ... probably a way amongst others to take my time and to feel unique (or just alive ?) ...
when I want to save one thing, I want to be able to save it in the simpliest way (hitting a key f.i.),
but I don't need necessarily "someone else" to decide for me what and when I must save, with or without asking my agreement,
2) the saves delay : I'm not a developper, so, if the config file is saved just by overwriting only the last setting modification,
(or the new added button in a custom panel), it could be somehow like instantaneous,
but if saving it will re-write the entire config file, and that repeatedly, depending of your own user config, it could take some seconds ... and more
(the user config file could be rather huuuuge, specially when plenty of heavy and old Plugins installed, as my current one.)

But unfortunately TVPaint does crash sometimes, especially when I leave it through the night.

maybe some conflict between "automatic" multi-tasks running merrily here and there in the background of your system...

As usual, Zig, you guess right !
I wouldn't have explained it better.

But unfortunately TVPaint does crash sometimes, especially when I leave it through the night.

Try to change your Mac sleeping options.

[Paul Fierlinger]

To automation I just want to say that I am with ZigOtto when it comes to creating animation; I too am not a big friend of automating everything and actually don't even use many automations already available. But an automatic instant save upon a forced shutdown doesn't fall into that category in my opinion.

[Soom]

To automation I just want to say that I am with ZigOtto when it comes to creating animation; I too am not a big friend of automating everything and actually don't even use many automations already available. But an automatic instant save upon a forced shutdown doesn't fall into that category in my opinion.

+1 - just wanted to respond the same - ZigOtto - it's completely normal that a software remembers your workspace - that's not called an automation - it's a simple user interface feature common in all software. being a control freak myself, I try to avoid any kind of automation, but when TVP crashes and I find that all my settings are gone, is not making me more happy!

Try to change your Mac sleeping options.

My Mac with TVP 9.5 causes me no trouble whatsoever - I actually don't remember it crashing even once!
The problem is the PC at work (Windows 7, TVP 10.5 (it was crashing also on 10.0)). And yes - I know - it's not only TVPaint - sometimes the system just restarts, or ends my session - have no idea why, and our sysadmin can't figure it either.

[Lukas]

+1

I lose settings all the time because of crashes too.