USER PREFERENCES

                 Have you come across issue when you have made some changes in your design and when you reopen the DGN file, changes you made is lost? Then you need to do one or all of following options:

• Select File - Save, the design is saved. This will save all the addition or modifications you have made to elements in your design.
• Select Workspace - Preferences - Operations - Automatically Save Design Changes check box. If you check this check box then design changes are saved to DGN file. 
• Set MS_DGNAUTOSAVE configuration variable. This will set Auto Timer for saving DGN file at specified interval.

These options will save all the design changes you have made in models.

If these options are not used, then while closing DGN file or Exiting MicroStation, it will show Alert message asking,

if you want to save changes to the DGN file.

If you want to know about settings saved, please read this blog.

User Preference File:  There is another option in MicroStation called as User Preferences. User preferences are settings that control the operation of MicroStation. For example, they affect how the product uses memory on a user's system, how windows are displayed, how various items on the screen are laid out and behave, how references are attached by default, and so on. User can adjust these settings to suit their own preferences. These are machine specific settings and are not saved in DGN file.

The preferences can be set in the Workspace - Preferences dialog.

There is a separate UPF file for each workspace user.

You can set the following preferences using the Preferences dialog:

• Which tools are visible?
• Tool window sizes.
• Fonts of the dialog displayed, Layout of the dialog.
• Preferences for all mouse buttons.
• Operation preferences like automatically save design changes, save setting while exit, Compress file on exit.
• Raster attachments related settings like display of raster.
• Various spell checking options in word processor.
• Background color of models.
• Transparency.
• Button assignments in various dialogs.
• Locations of various tool boxes.
• Input Key-in history. 
• AccuDraw.
• Last file you working on.
• Last printer driver used.
• Last seed cell library.

                 These settings are saved in a "UPF" file which is saved to the path pointed by "MS_USERPREF". By default, MicroStation uses the untitled.upf file. There is another configuration variable "MS_USERPREFSEED", this variable stores the seed user preference file. If you delete a UPF file, then MicroStation copies the seed file to the UPF path and uses this as default UPF file.

                 The UPF files are dynamic and are being written to while you are working in MicroStation. As your preferences and settings change, the UPF file is rewritten with these changes. So UPF file may vary in sizes for various workspaces. It is recommended that the UPF never be written to across your network.  

Docking.xml file:  Docking.xml file is kept at the UPF location by default. This file contains details about docked dialogs like docking position, height and width.

This file cannot be changed manually. It is saved automatically. As and when dialog positions are changed, this file is updated.

More blogs are coming up so be there: