Problem saving

[tony@blighe.com]

Just installed CSV Editor 0.9.2. Using for analysing logs from a UAV and I am delighted. Thanks.

My problem is that "Save" and "Save Project" are always greyed out (i.e. not enabled), even after making a like dragging some lines into a new group.

"Save As" and "Save Project As" are enabled, but I don't want to keep giving it a new name.

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks for your help.

Tony Blighe

[Waveworks]

Hello Tony,

I think that the answer to your question is that Save is only enabled if you have made a change to the actual data file, such as Edit Value or Rename, and Save Project is only enabled when you e.g. add files to the project. View operations like dragging lines between groups don't change the data file (csv files don't support view settings) so there's nothing to save. Your view configuration (groups, colors etc) should be retained automatically between sessions, so you don't need to save anything to keep them.

If you actually changed the data but still had Save greyed out, it's a bug that I definitely want to look into. In that case, can you give me some more details about what edit commands you had used?

/Gustaf

[tony@blighe.com]

Hi Gustaf,

I have a project open with two csv files. I just dragged another csv file into CSV Editor so I have three csv files open and showing in the tabs, but "save project" is still greyed out.

If I close CSV Editor and reopen, there are no csv files open.

[Waveworks]

Hi again,

To add a file to a project, you need to go to the Project menu and select Add Files. After that, Save Project should be enabled. Files that belong to a project will be listed in the Project Tree in the left side of the window.

If you drag a csv file into the editor, the file will merely be opened, not added to the project. Therefore there are no changes to save in the project, so that's why Save Project is greyed out. But if you only want retain open files between sessions, you don't need to add them to the project - instead, there is a preference for that. In the File menu, go to Preferences and check Open files from last session on startup and click OK.

Hope this helps!
/Gustaf

[tony@blighe.com]

OK, that works. Thanks

[tony@blighe.com]

Still having a bit of trouble saving the project. I had set up groups, colours and formulae, "save project" was always greyed out. My PC rebooted due to a Win update. When I reopened the project all the grouping, colours and formulae were gone.

[Waveworks]

That's weird, sorry about that.

With regard to groups and colours, everything should be saved silently and automatically when the app is closed, also when PC reboots. By default these settings aren't stored in the project but in a user settings file somewhere on your computer. I don't know if Windows may have reset the settings on the update, but it would be surprising. In lack of better explanations, I'm afraid it could be a bug. Had you received the latest version (1.0) before it happened?

With regard to formulae, they should indeed be saved with the project, as long as the formulae were added to files in the project. In fact, as soon as you add, change or remove a formula, Save Project should be enabled so you can save it. Doesn't that happen to you? Can you go to File > Preferences and check that "Save formulas with project" is enabled?

If you have the latest version, there's also an option "Save variable view settings with project" in the same Preferences dialog. If you enable it, your groups and colors will also be saved in the project file - and Save project will also be enabled as soon as you make any view changes.

[tony@blighe.com]

It may be just my interpretation of where settings are stored. Could you add a section to the documentation to explain where colours, groups and formulae are stored, and which of these settings applies only to project files rather than "dragged" files?

I am using v1.0 and all three options under preferences->general are checked. Here is what I have just done:

1) I have one file in a project, I set the groups, colours and a formula and then saved the project.

2) I added another file with same structure to the project and opened the file. The new file shows the same colours and groups, but the formula is not there. Should it be there?

3) So now I have two file tabs open and both files are in the project. I stretched one of the groups, "save project" became active and I saved the project, but the other file tab does not show this change. If I add another file to the project, this change is not shown on the newly added file.

If I close Flow then reopen, the stretched group does apply to the other file in the same folder, but not to a file in another folder.

Really confused. As I say, I think some documentation to say "this is stored here and that is stored there" would help. I'm guessing settings could be global or associated with project+folder or project+folder+file.

Many thanks

[Waveworks]

I can understand your confusion, because to be honest it's a bit of a mess. I'll explain here in this post, and for the next release, I'm planning to improve both the documentation and how it actually works, so it becomes more predictable and intuitive. Your feedback is very helpful for this.

First, view settings (colours, groupings etc.) and formulae are treated completely differently. So I'll explain them separately.

Formulae are stored in the project file, and each CSV file in the project has its own set of formulae. This means they never "jump" from one file to another - formulae need to be entered manually for each CSV file. Furthermore, formulae entered for CSV files that don't belong to the project ("dragged" files) will be completely forgotten when the application is closed. You can see exactly what's stored in a project (.flp) file if you open it in a text editor; it's human readable.

View settings, on the other hand, are stored globally in the application's user settings file somewhere on the computer. This happens automatically and silently when the application is closed, and you don't need to invoke any Save command in the menu for this. View settings are stored by variable name, so each known variable name has its own colour, cell assignment etc. The CSV file that the setting originates from is not stored. As soon as the setting for a variable is established, it will be applied to any variable of that name whenever a file is opened - regardless if the file is dragged or belongs to a project, and regardless what folder the file is in. In this way, view settings can "jump" from one file to another. However, views of already open files don't change. View settings are applied on opening only.

That's the default behaviour. However, in v1.0, the "Save variable view settings with project" option was added. It's meant for users who move the project from one computer to another and don't want to do all the view settings again on the other computer, but it can also be used to backup view settings into a file that the user has control over. However it may cause some confusing behaviour, and that's why it's disabled by default. Essentially, what it does is to remember the view settings for each CSV file in the project, and when one of these CSV files is opened again later, the settings are applied in exactly the same way as if it were done manually. This has the side effect that these settings are also stored globally as described above, and that may cause some unexpected behaviour. For example, if the view settings for the same variable are different for different CSV files (e.g. "timestamp" is blue in file1.csv and green in file2.csv), the global setting is dictated by whichever CSV file was opened last. I would guess that this option could be the cause of some of the unexpected behaviour that you describe.

TL;DR: Formulae are stored in project files and apply to single files only. View settings are stored automatically in the user settings file and apply globally to all files on opening them, unless "Save variable view settings with project" is enabled. There are no project-wide or folder-wide view settings in any case, only global or file-specific. If you want to reduce confusing behaviour, you should uncheck "Save variable view settings with project" again - it should work fine as long as you work on a single computer. It's still a mystery to me why your settings disappeared on a reboot.

I hope this brings you closer to something that works. Just write again if you need further guidance!

[tony@blighe.com]

I think a diagram would be useful in the help files.
OK, I think I've got it!

I have several files open.
I change the views settings in a tab and these changes only affect the open tab.
The latest changes, whichever tab they are made in, are stored globally.
When I close and reopen a file, or open a new file, all the latest changes will be applied to the file.

Formulae are only ever associated with one csv file, and this association is stored in the project.

That's logical.