Here's a bit of history.

In the early 90's Microsoft issues a technote discussing the use of the registry. It said the registry should not be used to store applicaiton/user settings. It recommended an application should make an entry indicating it's location in the file system and store it's application/user settings in ini/config files (user settings in the users profile directory). Of course everyone ignored that fine advice most especially Microsoft (Office team). The technote was withdrawn (you can't find it anymore) and we end up with the mess that is the registry today. Thankfully MS are moving away from it with .NET.

Anyway, can I please request that you move Winstep settings to appropriate config (text) files.
e.g.
c:\Program Files\WinStep\ws.config (ini, whatever)
C:\Documents and Settings\bruce\Application Data\WinStep\..

It would makes it so much easier move (partial) setups between machines.

ta
bruce

oops! meant to put in wishlist.

Anyway, for the above reason I find it much easier to use Folder shelfs than regular shelfs since I can copy the bits of the file system I want very easily.

That's why you have Backup and Restore buttons in the Global Preferences panel of both applications, which saves settings to, and restores settings from, files.

Using the Windows Registry is a LOT faster (and safer) than handling INI files with thousands of individual entries.

Is this dependant on the size of the registry...or the amount of shortcuts on the menu(s) or shelf(ves)? The reason I ask is that it takes 18 seconds here to delete a shortcut from a shelf and 20 seconds to add one. I just timed it. To me, that's painfully slow when shelf cleaning time comes.[/quote]

Hmmm... It takes considerably less time here (like 4 seconds to add a shortcut, and it shows up on the shelf immediately, and another 4 seconds to delete it). My guess is that it depends on the number of shortcuts you have on Regular shelves.

I'll see what I can do to vastly improve this, since, given your example, it can trully become a problem if you have lots of shelf items (currently I'm saving the whole shelf contents - I should be able to dramatically cut down times if I only add/delete the single entry).

James...

I've implemented a 'delayed' save technique. Some programs only save their settings on exit, but I find this too dangerous - if the application crashes for some reason, you lose all the changes that were made in that session.

So, besides making sure data is saved on exit, what I do is wait until WorkShelf has been idle for some time - and then save.

Needless to say, adding and deleting stuff from the shelf now happens nearly instantaneously - quite a dramatic effect if you have lots of shelf items.

Great! Thanks. I have a ton of shelf items.