View/Change User Files Location

[Andrew Patterson]

I have myriad issues with my user files, for some reason I cannot explain. I think it is related to their location, but I cannot see or change anywhere what is the place Accordance looks for my user files (to include workspaces). It would be very helpful if the Preferences > User Files included a filepath that could be changed as may be needful. I suspect it could make troubleshooting issues with user files easier, as well.

As a sidenote, if anyone knows why my workspace refuses to show up, please advise.

[Erhard]

If you click on utilities, it will bring up the dialogue box so that you can choose where the files are

In the help menu it list what will be there - second screenshot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andrew Patterson]

On 3/29/2022 at 9:57 AM, Erhard said:

If you click on utilities, it will bring up the dialogue box so that you can choose where the files are

In the help menu it list what will be there - second screenshot

 

Unfortunately, this does not work. I tried it, but it only changes the location of the Accordance modules and support files---not user files.

 

User files are held in a separate location, which is great actually, because I only want my personal files in OneDrive and Dropbox, not 10GB+ of modules.

 

I am requesting that the second location be as easily "moveable" as the first.

[R. Mansfield]

16 minutes ago, Andrew Patterson said:

 

Unfortunately, this does not work. I tried it, but it only changes the location of the Accordance modules and support files---not user files.

 

User files are held in a separate location, which is great actually, because I only want my personal files in OneDrive and Dropbox, not 10GB+ of modules.

 

I am requesting that the second location be as easily "moveable" as the first.

 

If you're wanting to move user-created files (Documents: Accordance Files), close Accordance and move the folder in Explorer to wherever you want it. When you launch Accordance next, the program will ask you where the folder is. Navigate to it and set it in the new location.

[Andrew Patterson]

So the thing is...the files are right where I want them. But Accordance forgot where that is, apparently...so moving them won't fix it.

[Steven S]

@Andrew Patterson You can verify Accordance is looking for your user files where you think it is by checking the value of the com.oaktree.settings.general.accordanceuserfilesfolderpathname preference in the General.apref file. On Windows, this file should be located at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Accordance\Accordance Preferences (where %USERPROFILE% is usually C:\Users\<username>).

[Erhard]

30 minutes ago, Andrew Patterson said:

So the thing is...the files are right where I want them. But Accordance forgot where that is, apparently...so moving them won't fix it.

It did work on my computers, I wonder why yours is not working?

[Andrew Patterson]

33 minutes ago, Steven S said:

@Andrew Patterson You can verify Accordance is looking for your user files where you think it is by checking the value of the com.oaktree.settings.general.accordanceuserfilesfolderpathname preference in the General.apref file. On Windows, this file should be located at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Accordance\Accordance Preferences (where %USERPROFILE% is usually C:\Users\<username>).

 

This is very helpful, thank you! However, that preference is not even in General.apref ... maybe that's the issue? But I can still see a number of my user files in Accordance, so 🤷‍♂️

[Erhard]

1 hour ago, Andrew Patterson said:

But I can still see a number of my user files in Accordance, so 🤷‍♂️

A question here: are the files that you see in the original location? Is the location that you want to have them on the same disk drive?

are all the files missing in the new location? I have noticed that you may need to open the file once from the location where it is now at or use the "File" open command.

hope that helps.

[Steven S]

1 hour ago, Andrew Patterson said:

However, that preference is not even in General.apref ... maybe that's the issue?

 

Not sure. If I remove that preference from General.apref while Accordance isn't running and then restart Accordance, I get an error message (see attached) and then am prompted to select my Accordance Files folder (as @R. Mansfield described above), after which Accordance opens normally (and the preference is rewritten to General.apref). So, if your preference was truly absent, I'd expect the same behavior.

 

For reference, below is the portion of my General.apref around the com.oaktree.settings.general.accordanceuserfilesfolderpathname preference, if that makes it easier to find. (Note that since this appears to be an unordered map, your preferences may not be written in the same order as mine.)

 

[{
...
"com.oaktree.settings.general.numlitestartups" : 0,
"com.oaktree.settings.general.showinstantinflect" : 1,
"com.oaktree.settings.general.searchreplacecasesensitive" : 0,
"com.oaktree.settings.general.accordanceuserfilesfolderpathname" : "D:\\Steve\\Documents\\Accordance Files\\",
"com.oaktree.settings.general.searchcontextnumber" : 1,
"com.oaktree.settings.general.prevlocalization" : "",
"com.oaktree.settings.general.citmkcontref1" : "",
...
}]

 

[Erhard]

Steven, a question for you. What program did you use to open that file as I tried opening it with Accordance and it would not do so?

[Steven S]

@Erhard At a minimum, you should be able to open .apref files in any text editor, as they simply contain text data in JSON format. But, as the .apref files minimize whitespace to make them smaller, they can be a bit hard to read in a vanilla text editor that doesn't understand JSON format. Alternatively, you could use an online JSON viewer that will prettify the file contents to make it easier to digest (e.g., https://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer).

[Steven S]

@Erhard At a minimum, you should be able to open .apref files in any text editor, as they simply contain text data in JSON format. But, as the .apref files minimize whitespace to make them smaller, they can be a bit hard to read in a vanilla text editor that doesn't understand JSON format. Alternatively, you could use an online JSON viewer that will prettify the file contents to make it easier to digest (e.g., https://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer).

[Andrew Patterson]

On 4/1/2022 at 2:55 PM, Erhard said:

A question here: are the files that you see in the original location? Is the location that you want to have them on the same disk drive?

are all the files missing in the new location? I have noticed that you may need to open the file once from the location where it is now at or use the "File" open command.

hope that helps.

 

All my user files are together in %USERPROFILE%/OneDrive/Documents/Accordance Files. Really, this is the usual Documents/Accordance Files, but backed up to OneDrive (since Accordance's Dropbox integration can be a little buggy, I don't want to lose some of my tools---I nearly have!) The ones that display in Accordance (i.e., that I don't have to File>Open>search for) are probably duplicated in some other folder, but I don't know what folder it would be. When I save a workspace or user tool, Accordance throws them in the default location, but then it doesn't look for them in the same place. It's really odd.

 

I have tried opening the file from the location and File>Open. No luck, unfortunately.

[Erhard]

Hi Andrew

do you have any external hard drives, USB stick or possibly an SD card that you can back up all of your tools to?

I use sync.com to do what you are trying to do.

I would save all of your Accordance files to at least 2 places, one possibly somewhere in Documents, but not in the Accordance folder. I would also put them on an external drive, USB stick or SD card. Once that is done, delete the files from the present locations.

After this, I would Place an Accordance Files folder where you want to have them and copy all your files to that place. Once you have done that, open Accordance and it should then ask for the place where the files are. I think it is important not to leave any files where they used to be.

Hopefully that works for you. I worked good for me and the syncing seems to work well for me between my computers. This way they always stay synchronized.