Dario Anderle inquired as to which files ought to be copied over to
a new machine to carry over one's Guide settings. I don't have any
such list at present of "which file(s) should be kept to do what".
However... here are the most significant ones, with some warnings
about their care and feeding:
The most basic file of settings is, of course, 'startup.mar'.
Simply copying this is a Bad Idea, because Guide can then get
confused as to where the CD-ROM drive is and may look for files that
do not exist on the new system. It's better to use "File... Save a
Mark" to create, say, "My Personal Defaults". Then copy _that_
mark to the new machine, and use "File... Load a Mark" to access it.
The particular meaning of most of the lines in 'startup.mar' are
given at
http://www.projectpluto.com/mar_fmt.htm . But the above
method of transferring the data is a lot simpler.
Copy 'toolbar.dat' and 'hotkey.dat' to carry over your toolbar
and hotkey settings. Don't bother copying over files such as
'itoolbar.dat' and 'ftoolbar.dat' (Italian and French-language text
for toolbar items). These are not actually modified by Guide; it
simply reads them when it needs to know the Italian or French text
for a particular Guide action.
Copying 'guide.dat' will bring over a few miscellaneous settings.
Be warned that this file does contain direct references to file names
and paths, and there's a danger that those files and paths won't
exist on your new machine. Usually, Guide will handle this with
grace. But you may want to load 'guide.dat' in a text editor and
simply remove any lines with filenames and paths.
If you've modified your horizon, you need to copy 'horizon.dat'
and 'objects.dat'. (Those who would like to modify their horizon,
to perhaps show mountains, trees, etc. as they actually appear,
should edit 'horizon.dat' and look at the end of the file; it gives
instructions on how to do this.) If you've not altered your horizon,
you can ignore these files.
Similarly, one can modify Guide to have mouse clicks in the legend
area do assorted things. For example: by default, clicking on the
time zone shown in the legend brings up the Time Zone selection
dialog. Some people edit the file 'legend.dat' to modify this. If you have
done so, don't forget to copy 'legend.dat' to your new system. (Again,
if you've made no changes here, don't bother copying 'legend.dat'.)
You may also wish to look through the .mar and .ovl files to see if
there are mark and overlay files you've made that ought to be moved to
the new machine.
-- Bill