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Any way to change where the Segment Pro files are saved?

It would be so much easier to keep backup files of my Segment Pro plans and other files if they were saved in Documents instead of App Data. Any way to change that?
 
When I wrote Segment PRO, I wanted to address an issue that drove me crazy for the 17 years I’d been providing support to users of Woodturner PRO, 3D Design Pro, and Lamination PRO. Segmenters are really good at their craft, but they are LOUSY at saving files in any meaningful ways. Most of the time, I would find that they had saved all of their files to Documents. Not a folder in documents - in the root of documents. They could never find the file they were looking for. Most of this was pre-zoom so I gave support without screen sharing. Ugh. I’d ask them to start File Explorer and they would say, ”What is the File Explorer?” I often had to explain how to use it.

So with Segment PRO, to maintain whatever sanity I had left, I decided to take that task away from them and store the files for them and simply show them a list of the files they have saved. If you need one of those files, you can click on Share > Export and it is put in the My Segment PRO folder where you can name it or forward it to someone.

I’m not going to call this a great solution, but it fixed the problem I was trying to fix and since 2017, I’ve now had 1 request to do it differently.

So the answer is no - there is no way I could justify changing this approach - even adding it as an alternative option is far more effort than I would consider because I’d have no way to show them a list with pictures of the files they have saved. There’s a tab for Profiles, a tab for Saved Plans, a tab for species and it can’t get any more simple than that. The process works just fine - it just isn’t the way a seasoned computer user like you would want it to work. I wrote Segment PRO specifically for a beginning segmenter and for users that aren’t well-versed in computers.

My recommendation is to use Woodturner PRO/3D Design Pro. It works exactly the way you have always saved files and it is the most powerful segmenting program ever developed. Once you get good at it and can use the keyboard shortcuts, you can get to be really fast at designing vessels. You won’t ever be able to do things as fast as you can with Segment PRO which does most of the work for you, but if you give me a photo of a bowl you want to make, it wouldn’t take me much longer to start and finish it in Woodturner PRO than it would Segment PRO.

My method of saving files is probably like yours - I have a well-organized structure that ends up with a single folder for every vessel I make. In that folder I save everything related to that vessel - the image or sketch of the bowl, the 3D Design Pro, Woodturner PRO file, the Lamination PRO file and a notes file that talks about things I did when making the bowl and notes about what I would do differently if I built it again.

Segment PRO doesn’t let me do any of that. Since I only use it for standard segmented bowls, there’s just no need. I just always start from scratch with every project. If I choose to save the file, I do and if I don’t save it at all, it doesn’t really matter. That’s certainly not the case with the other three programs, though.

Lloyd
 
It would be so much easier to keep backup files of my Segment Pro plans and other files if they were saved in Documents instead of App Data. Any way to change that?
In my last post, I told you about why I did it the way I did, but I didn’t really address your exact question. Is there a way to relocate that folder.

Obviously there is. I could handle it with an option to the installer that redirects the software to a different location and write it to the registry (which I now avoid like the plague).

That sounds easy and it isn’t a big job, but I guarantee it will bring support questions at at time where I just don’t need more support questions. The AppData is a place that nobody (present company excepted) knows about and it works just fine. I just see people pointing it to locations that can be on a drive that gets changed, renamed or the like and when they do, I’ll be the one they call to resolve it.

So the question is - if you were me, would you do it knowing that it isn’t broken and isn’t in demand and you can’t charge a nickel for any of the work you do on it and nobody will not buy the software if it isn’t done.

Lloyd
 
Another suggestion…

In Unix, I would write a cron job to simply copy the contents of that folder to another folder of your choice. In Windows, there is something similar:

Would something like that work for you?

I’m not looking to get out of work. Oh wait. That’s exactly what I’m looking to do as in retirement I like travel, golf, music and photography (and segmenting) more than I like programming. :->

Lloyd
 
I appreciate you taking the time for the detailed explanation. I will give all of this some thought. I wasn't suggesting you rewrite the program. I was just hoping there was a setting somewhere I hadn't found.
 
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