Wayward Scrap Panes

[longfellow]

Been using 2x since version R7, and x2 since alpha 0.48; now I'm a happy x2PRO user!

Thanks, Nikos, for this most excellent software!

The scrap panes are very cool, but they don't seem to remember their screen positions. What I mean is this:

x2 remembers its screen position from session to session; so do x2's clones. Say I open Scrap #1, put it in the upper left quadrant of the screen, do whatever I need to do, close Scrap #1 and close x2.

Later I open x2; x2 is where I left it. Now I open Scrap #1, but instead of being where I left it (in the upper left quadrant) it's somewhere else (like the middle or bottom right of the screen).

Is there a way to make the scraps persistent? (As I recall, scraps were persistent in x2 alpha.) A bit in a reg key that needs to be turned on, perhaps?

Thanks

[nikos]

do you have "save settings on exit" cleared by any chance?
try the following:
* press ctrl+S on a selected file to open a scrap for it
* move the scrap where you want it
* close it
* hit ctrl+s again

when i do the above the scrap is exactly where i last left it

[fgagnon]

expanding on longfellow's request, ...
I am finding that the more I use scraps as catalogs for related material, the more I want to have each retrieved .cida file remember its own settings -- not just have a common preferred setup, as results from ctrl+s.

[nikos]

which subset of settings?

[longfellow]

"save settings on exit" is checked (I looked for that first).

But the ctrl-S, move, close, ctrl-S lined them up and those scrap panes are wayward no more.

Thanks kindly.

I'll also add my vote to fgagnon's for .cida files remembering their settings. Scraps as catalogs is one of my favorite uses, too.

[fgagnon]

@ which subset of settings? -

It would be what I call the standard view components:

window size & position
pane style
selected columns & their widths
arrange by
quick viewer on/off
(I don't use dualpane for scraps, so no opinion there)

[pmike]

One thing that would be worthwhile to include in the .cida files would be the search parameters used to generate the contents of the scrap frame (while searching).

Then when users ran the "refresh" command while viewing a .cida file, the search would re-execute.

Of course, if any items were deleted/added manually before the scrap's contents were saved, the search parameter info could be discarded.

Perhaps x2 could offer a different "save format" since this type of persistent search capability probably doesn't lend itself to .cida files.

One more thing...how hard would it be to export the .cida files in an open XML format?

[nikos]

currently the cida file is just a file version of the clipboard formats that are involved in drag-drop. It's simple, fast, and the same piece of code can be used to load cida and accept drops

i don't want to sacrifice this programming elegance. but i think that a compromize would be to have other file types like "cida2" or what have you that could include additional things like search options or window layout

btw you can already save search options; just use the save button in the find dialog

ps i was never a fan of XML. What would be the "schema"? If you need a text dump just select all items and hit ctrl+P !