Global "Preferences" tab is being removed

#1

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.

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What is it being replaced with…

Date & number format (+ first day of week)

This is now set for each business separately under Settings tab.

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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.

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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.

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For server edition, simply place logo.png in your Application data folder.

Why “Preferences” tab is obsolete

  1. 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.
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    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.
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    Looks a lot cleaner.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

3 Likes
Number formats for different companies
Symlink to manager files doesn't work (anymore)
#2

Is the process for putting a logo on the sign in page for server edition still putting a file in the manager directory called logo?

#3

Yes. That is not changing.

#4

Does this apply to language too? And currency?

#5

Language preferences are individual to the user. See Set language | Manager.
Currencies have always been defined by the business. See Set base currency | Manager and Define foreign currencies | Manager.

#6

From the explanation above, it is not really clear for me what happens if I click “reset folder”?

#7

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.