The latest version (20.10.95) is removing Preferences tab from Manager. This was the place where you’d set date & number format, first day of week, location of application data folder and upload logo for login screen.
What is it being replaced with…
Date & number format (+ first day of week)
This is now set for each business separately under Settings tab.
Application data folder
This is applicable for desktop edition only. When viewing list of businesses under Businesses tab, the ability to change application folder is in the bottom-left corner.
Application data folder is where Manager should be probing for *.manager files where each file represents a business. Changing or reseting folder does not modify or delete any of your businesses. It’s merely telling Manager where to look for *.manager files.
We recommend you set this to your Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud or some other synchronized folder. This means your businesses in desktop edition will be automatically backed up.
Upload logo for login screen
This is applicable for cloud edition only. To upload logo for login screen, go to https://cloud.manager.io and click Upload Logo button.
For server edition, simply place logo.png in your Application data folder.
Why “Preferences” tab is obsolete
In older versions, global preferences have been stored in file named 00000000000000000000000000000000.manager and this file was visible in your Application data folder among your regular businesses.
In order to avoid having 00000000000000000000000000000000.manager, the preferences saved in this file (date & number format, first day of week) are now stored within individual businesses.
Looks a lot cleaner.
Another issue which is being addressed by this change is that Manager would require to create this file on startup. This could lead Manager crashing on startup if there was something wrong with this file or the file could not be created or opened due to file permissions or other reasons.
Downgrading is now easier because once this file (00000000000000000000000000000000.manager) was upgraded to newer version, older version of Manager would not launch. So by eliminating this file, you will be able to launch older version of Manager even after installing newer one.
As an added benefit, it is now possible to have different businesses to have different date & number format preferences.
If you are using server edition, do not delete 00000000000000000000000000000000.manager yet. It is still used for storing users and user permissions. But as far as desktop edition goes, 00000000000000000000000000000000.manager is no longer required and can be deleted.
Your application folder path will be restored to the default location for your operating system. But your data files will not move automatically. If you restart the program, the Businesses page will display what was left in the application data folder when you changed to the new location. No updates to that data will have been made. The data files you created in or moved to the new location will remain there and still be available. But, if you want to go back to using the default location with current data, you will have to move the files there yourself.
Dear @lubos, I’m using the desktop edition version 20.8.67 as production version and the (continuously updated) server version as experimental version. Each time I import the backup file from the desktop edition into the server edition I have to change the Date & Number Format settings. It’s not a big deal but it would make life a bit easier if the conversion could be done automatically. Could you please have a look at it when you’ve got some time to spare (which I know is little)? Thanks in advance!
Your situation is caused by the fact that your production (desktop) edition still has a global preferences file outside any business data file and the test (server) edition — being newer — does not. The newer versions of the software store the date/number format within individual business files. So there is nowhere to store the old date/number format. You have to enter the format anew every time you import the backup. (As a side note, the preferences were not updated when importing backups prior to the change.)
This situation arises because you are using a production version hundreds of updates behind. The need to update preferences in Settings was covered in the January 2021 newsletter:
