Setting Styles (changing default setting)

[paulstokes]

I've been trying to adjust the Default style setting, but have encountered problems.

Method:-
Put a song in the Play List, adjust the settings (eg font size & colour), then click "Save Current Style" and use the existing name [Default].
When I load another song, it still has the orignial default style (yellow, shadow etc).

I tried this a few times, shut down & reload ZW. The style list now has 19 (yes, nineteen) styles, all saying [Default (without the closing bracket).

Solution
Edit the "styles.ini" file in the ZW installation folder.
If the default style is written exactly like this:
[[Default]]
Then it needs to be changed to read
[Default]
ie: just the one set of square brackets.
After making this change I have been able to alter the Default style successfully through the normal interface rather than by editing the .ini file.

Hope this helps if anyone else has encountered the same problem.
It would be good to know if my .ini file was inadvertently altered, or is the [[Default]] line in there as part of the installation? (in which case I'd suggest it would be good to alter it when the patches are distributed.

[paulstokes]

Bother... it DID solve it...

But now the same behaviour is back again... putting pesky [] brackets around the word 'Default' and then creating a whole host of extra entries in the .ini file. Help.

[ChrisClark]

Hi Paul,

To save the ZW default style (rather then a style with the name 'Default') there is a menu option 'Format->Assign as Default Style'. The default style is actually saved in Settings.ini - not in the styles.ini file. This is how it was in ZW2 and though not the ideal situation also not something we could untangle quickly.

When you saved it with [Default] it created that entry in your styles.ini file. Ini file standard is to put the section name ('[Default]' in this case) in square brackets which is why it ends up with [[Default]] and then reads out [[Default] - which causes issues. Trying to save any style name with square brackets in it will cause problems. Why the ini file keeps growing is because the styles list (and all settings) are saved when ZW is closed whether they have been changed or not.

If you could edit your Styles.ini file (close ZW first) and remove any entries that you have tried to create for Default. What should remain is any of your own created styles (if you have none you can just delete the styles.ini file). Then use the menu option to change the default style.

Cheers,
Chris

[chris_h62]

I have to say this issue confused me when I was 1st trying to change the default style in v2.5.

I think the porblem is that it makes logical sense to the user to save the default style in the same way that you would save any other style, however, the way that ZW 2.5 works is not in this way. To add to this confusion is the fact that the "Save style as" dialog's default value is "[Default]", thus suggeting to the user that the actual Default style can be saved in this way. Whereas in actual fact, just a new Style (in Styles.ini) called "[Default]" is created and NOT the actual default style updated.

To help users, it may be helpful to remove the automatic value "[Default]" from the "Save style as" dialog.

Chris H

[paulstokes]

Thanks, guys, the explanations make sense, anyway! The comment about not having "[Default]" as an automatic option in the pop-up name window would be very agreeable - it truly does explicitly suggest that this is the way to change the Default values.

Does ZW end up with patches to fix issues such as these, or would there simply be a new release of, say, ZW 2.5.1 ?

[webmaster]

On my assumptions and don't hold me to it.

2.5.06

I am planning a downloads area re-write to make it easier to get updates and seperate V2.0 addons.

This will hopefully have translations as well.

Regards
Edd Stonham
Webmaster

[Christian]

Mmm.. thanks for alll your comments folks.
We definitely need to tidy this up soon I think!

[ChrisClark]

Hi all,

Edd is correct that we will be releasing a patch version soon to correct some minor issues - and this one which is not so minor.

My thought is, as Chris raised, to move the saving the default style to the same place as the custom styles. I have done some work on this and we will see an improved interface in the next update.

Cheers,
Chris