Can't update the contents of my personal User Tool

[Mutien Chen]

I started to build up one of my user tool few weeks ago.

I am not sure is there a limitation of the fonts or size of the user tool.

Because yesterday, after a long edition of my user tool, during the editing I kept saving the file, when I reopened the user tool, there are a lot of contents which I just added were gone. In the beginning I thought it might be my mistake, and I restarted to work again at the same part, however, the same thing happened. I could still save and update my content when the editing window is still on, however, when I tried to close the editing window, it asked me to update or cancel the update which I just use shortcut to save a second ago. After I close the editing window, all the things I just added were gone again. This repeated several time and till now, I couldn't add any more and adjust the user tool.

It's quite depressed that I have finished 95% of it several times, and now I still lost 20% of contents which I added.

 

 

[Mutien Chen]

I am using OSX 10.9 and Accordance 10.3.3, thanks!

 

 

 

[Steve King]

There is an issue with the number of updates you can do on the same user tool without having shut down the computer. After that it will not actually update the tool. I think Daniel worked out is was about 39 changes. After that you need to reboot the computer.

 

It is caused by adding a temp file to a particular directory - See http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9657&hl=

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hi mutien,

 

I meant to respond to this last night. I believe Steve is correct about this. One other workaround exists if its this issue which is to create a new User Tool and copy the content into that and proceed from there. Once you reboot and clear the temp files you should be able to copy it back to the original tool name. Acc dev. really need to look into an alternative tempfile naming algorithm or they need to delete the temp files once they have been finished with so the problem doesn't occur. But I don't know how easy either is to do in this case. Its only a problem for high numbers of updates to tools or user bibles between system reboots. And I suspect the number of updates is related to the initial length of the file name and the maximum length of the file name so the exact number may vary a bit but again I'm not sure.

 

And if its not this file name issue copying to a new name should workaround any corrupt file which you could then remove and recreate from the new copy.

 

Thx

D

[Joel Brown]

This limit will be gone in 10.3.4, you will be able to edit literally millions of times before having any issues. Well, you may have other issues after a million edits

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hey thanx Joel - that's great to hear.

 

Thx

D

[Steve King]

Thanks Joel that is excellent news.

[Mutien Chen]

Thanks Steve, Daniel and Joel. The problem solved!!

I'm looking forward to 10.3.4!!!

[Anon]

I've found over the years that the best practice is to work from a word processor, then when you make large edits you ran re-import the file.

 

I've been thinking about the User Tool framework lately, especially in terms of the need to 1. generalize the syntax of word processors for more predictable import options and 2. the ability for the user to create field rich tools of his or her own. So far, I think the answer relates to an Accordance sponsored Style Set for the major word editors (e.g., Mellel, Nisus Writer Pro, Ms Word). This would involve, for example, learning how each editor employs global styles and CSS syntax for export (e.g., <span class="YOURSTYLE">this is your style</span>). These occurrences could be incorporated into a respective field, and the if the unicode blocks were those of Hebrew or Greek, Accordance Import would respectively interpret it as such.

 

This would be a welcome feature, as the ability for the user to create more data rich content is a desideratum. However, this project would consume a lot of time. Regardless, elapsed time is the by-product of insanely great products I suppose.