Save Profile button should be renamed to Export Profile & Settings

[Lores]

Reasoning:

- Save Profile button does not save but exports to a file - similar to like the Export button does

- Save Profile button not only secures the overall Profile but also Settings

- There is not separate option for securing of Settings


ERGO: the current button is not informative enough and is inconsistent with other buttons nomenclature, thus should be renamed from Save Profile to Export Profile & Settings

[phil]

Well, you maybe have a point, but at the same time, you can make a language template and call it whatever you like.

XMBC is a hobby project, I release for free, and work on in my spare time (which these days I have very little of)
I know your new here, 2.19.2 was released in 2019 - maybe that gives you some idea how much time I have to spend on XMBC.

[Lores]

If my initial post has correct info and I understood your answer, then why when I click the Export button, the Windows' pop-up window for its Save as type has only

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XMBC Settings (*.xmbcs)

but when I click Save Profile button it has

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XMBC Profile (*.xmbcp)
XMBC Settings (XMBCSettings.XML) (XMBCSettings.XML)

?

Should not this be

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XMBC Profile (*.xmbcp)

for the first button [with a >>p<< at the end], while that other one located lower should have

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XMBC Settings (*.xmbcs)

only [with >>s<<]? Or [let's say] something like

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XMBC Profile & Settings (*.xmbcps)

[i.e. a new format indicating with >>ps<< at its end what it holds]?

And / or maybe there should be a third button, so that a user could export individual entry or all entries all-together or just the Settings? Each of such buttons generating a file in its own format or the first two sharing the same extension? How is a user suppose to export all entries but without Settings attached to them? If I am not mistaken it has to bo done on a one-by-one basis, right?


Overall: all of this a little chaotic thus confusing

[phil]

Yes its confusing - I concede that!

The main settings file is an XML file (.xml) and is called XMBCSettings.
This contains ALL the settings, and all the profiles.

xmbcs files are subsets, containing JUST the exported profile, not all the other XMBC settings
xmbcp files are effectively EXACTLY the same as the original XMBC settings file, they contain all the settings and all the applications. So when I ask someone for a copy of their settings, they can just use the "save profile" button to dump everything to a file that they can send to me.

All the files are XML formatted files, the different file extensions are there to try and separate the types of file.

I understand the the use of "profile" in two places (meaning different things) is confusing. It has come about because XMBC has evolved over almost 20 years now. If I were to throw it all out and start again, there are many things I would do differently - but that's simply not feasible!

The export/import of application/window profiles (xmbcs) was added first. The intent of this was so users could share a specific (single) application/window "profile". Thats when XMBCS files became a thing...

Then much later on, the save/load "profile" buttons (xmbcp) were added. They needed to be called different than Export/Import as those buttons already existed, so I chose (wrongly or rightly) 'Save Profile' and 'Load Profile'. In this sense, profile means "your entire XMBC setup" and thus applies to the entire settings, including ALL application/window profiles. And again, I couldn't use XMBCS as the file extension as that was taken (above). So I chose XMBCP.

I'm afraid that's just how it is - and its difficult to change the file extensions now and its a little difficult to change the language (text in the GUI) without impacting all translations - so its quite a big job to do so I haven't bothered, and no one has really vocalized a problem with it (most people seem to understand XMBC is a free program that I have little time to devlop).

I generally don't mind constructive criticism, but this is getting a little tiring!

EDIT: I can (and will) change the text in the file type dropdowns as that doesn't go through the translator anyway (perhaps it should!)