New Preference Profiles (2024)
The way Alias 2024 managers user preferences has been re-engineered to be more reliable and easier to manage.
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- In User Preferences, there's a new format for saving your interface setup called User Profiles.
- So when I arrange the interface to my preferred layout, so docking the palette, for example, or customize it by adding tools to a shelf, then I can save that arrangement to this default user profile here by using Save Profile.
- But now with Profiles, I can also create additional preferences.
- So if I dock the palette up here instead and change colors, for example, then that's not going to affect this saved user profile unless I do a save.
- So I can do a Save as instead and create a new one called MyPrefsV2.
- And then that's added to the list and I can switch between those profiles either here and I'll go back to the user profile, or down here on the shortcut bar so I'll just switch back to my new prefs.
- During a normal work session, I'll open and move windows and generally mess up the interface.
- All these changes are also saved by an automatic background process of saving the system preferences.
- So now there's no warning about saving prefs when I exit,because when I relaunch. I just pick up seamlessly from where I left off.
- But if you prefer to start from the tidy layout, you can always reset to your stored prefs using Restore Profile.
- For backups or copying to other machines, you can use Export Profile to save a .json format file onto disk.
- And you can see that this no longer goes into the system directory by default.
- So I'll save that and then to load one back in, I can use Add Profile and select the .json file that maybe your colleague has exported.
- So that's then added to the list and can be switched to if we're collaborating on one machine, for example.
- But that .json format is different from the .aps format used in previous Alias versions.
- So to bring in my old preferences, I need to use Import and Merge instead and choose the elements I want to bring in.
- So I'm gonna turn off Workspaces so that I keep this new control panel group and colors because I hadn't customized those.
- And I'll get my exported preference set from Alias 2023.
- So then I can find my marking menu here as the second default and I'll switch to that.
- And my shelf will be loaded into the default here so I can open that and all my tools are there, which has saved me a lot of setup time.
- So once I've got that as I want it, I can do a Save as and I'll just call it MyImportedPrefs.
- And then finally, the Guest Profile here is just a right protected, very simple standard interface that will be the same on every installation, so there's consistency if you need it.
- And the factory reset can be used if you prefer to start from an absolute minimum interface and build up your working environment from scratch.
Tool Resets
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- When you save a preference profile, then your interface layout and customizations like shelves, marking menus and hotkeys are all saved, and all tool settings are also saved to that profile.
- And then during a work session, you may make changes to the interface and probably many changes to the tool settings.
- So that when you exit and then relaunch Alias with the interface layout, you pick up exactly where you left off.
- It launches with the saved profile settings plus all those work-in-progress changes.
- But it's slightly different with the tool settings.
- On relaunch, these are always reset to the saved profile value and this means that you always get consistent startup settings which many users prefer.
- But if you did want to save those work-in-progress changes on the tool settings, then you just need to do a save profile before exiting.
- So it's tool settings like these on Revolve that will get saved.
- So I'm going to start by using Utilities > Tool Resets and doing a factory reset for the palette and menus.
- So these here are now the factory settings for Revolve.
- And then I'm going to set these up the way I like to do 360 degree revolves.
- So I'll switch to the Y axis four segments and I go up to degree six for accuracy.
- And I'll also turn these continuity locators off.
- So if I now do a save profile, then these settings are saved as my reset values.
- So if I just change some of those, when I do a reset here, it's the saved profile values that get used.
- So I get my four and six back.
- And if I change them again, here on Utilities > Tool Resets, this Reset option will use the profile values too.
- So again, I get back to my four and six.
- And then finally, when I exit and relaunch, all the tools will be reset to the stored profile values, so I've got a consistent starting setup.
For more information, see User Preferences.