Re: [guide-user] reinstall question

R Shapp Sep 21, 2004

Hi Oliver and Ben,

Bill answered a similar question (which files to save during a
re-installation) back in August of 2003. See a copy of it below my signature.

HTH

Ray Shapp

*********8/29/2003*****

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