compresses file on exit Config Variable

I cannot find a configuration variable to turn compress file one exit "on" by default for new and existing users.  Does one exist or doe sit have to be manually activated?

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  • I'm just thinking there may be some confusion about what Compress File on Exit and how this is different to the Compress Options.

    Compress File on Exit - If off (the default), the active design file is not automatically compressed when closed. The compression operation permanently removes elements marked for deletion.

    communities.bentley.com/.../8367.compress-file-on-exit

    Compress Options - Used to purge empty and unused data resources as well as deleted elements.

    communities.bentley.com/.../configure-your-compress-options

    As David has suggested, the Compress File on Exit option does not have a configuration variable as it is saved in the User Preferences File. If you wanted this to be defined by default for all your users then your would need to work with a User Preference Seed.

    communities.bentley.com/.../17493.create-a-seed-user-preference-file-spf-that-does-not-contain-file-history

    Regards
    Andrew Bell
    Technical Support
    Bentley Systems

  • Hi Andrew,

    Thanks for the explanation. I believe I had it straight already...

    While I understand that "compress file on exit" can be enabled and is saved to the User Preferences File, it would be much better from a file size management situation if there was a config variable for this option.
    I don't think we want to dictate to the Users their preferences.

    If it was available, and set as a global setting, every single time anyone exits a file it gets compressed.
    Any data the user added and then deleted, gets cleared out of the file reducing the file size. It might be almost nothing, but could be a huge amount of data. And I've seen the Civil folks add every single point that resides in a DTM to the file as elevation text and then delete it. Also, contours that may have been added at a small interval (that was wrong) - and is deleted and replaced with a saner setting.
    Without “compress on exit” that data is carried around for the remainder of the project.
    • File open.
    • File close
    • File checkout (or copy out).
    • Automatic renditioning
    • New revision
    • Etc…
    Whereas, the ability to force every user to “compress on exit” would clean up the files every time they are closed and none of that is carried forward.
    And everything works faster…
  • I have to fully agree with Michael on this.  I've imported step files from customers that are 75-200mb and if somebody copies that information one time then deletes it the file doubles and become un-usable.  Leaving it entirely up to users to check a box seems weird and it doesn't solve the issue of pre-existing users.

    I would pose the question, how many firms have pre-defined default user profiles created and every other config file done when they started to use microstation?  I know we didn't it grew over time from back in 1997.  Now 20 years later we've never checked that setting and we're stuck with users who don't have it on.  To complicate things more most users have backup read-only copies of their .upf, .dgnlib and other files so that if they become corrupted they don't have to re-build their interfaces from scratch.

    As an example the current job i'm working on has 0.98 GB of 3D models spread over 223 files at any given moment 30ish of those files could referenced into another file compounding the issue.  Poor file size management grows exponentially in this kind of project.  This project is only 4 months in and we've got 2 more years of work to do before it's complete.

    Side note: you can over-ride the Auto-Save setting in the user preference file to be locked on I don't see how this is any different.

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  • I have to fully agree with Michael on this.  I've imported step files from customers that are 75-200mb and if somebody copies that information one time then deletes it the file doubles and become un-usable.  Leaving it entirely up to users to check a box seems weird and it doesn't solve the issue of pre-existing users.

    I would pose the question, how many firms have pre-defined default user profiles created and every other config file done when they started to use microstation?  I know we didn't it grew over time from back in 1997.  Now 20 years later we've never checked that setting and we're stuck with users who don't have it on.  To complicate things more most users have backup read-only copies of their .upf, .dgnlib and other files so that if they become corrupted they don't have to re-build their interfaces from scratch.

    As an example the current job i'm working on has 0.98 GB of 3D models spread over 223 files at any given moment 30ish of those files could referenced into another file compounding the issue.  Poor file size management grows exponentially in this kind of project.  This project is only 4 months in and we've got 2 more years of work to do before it's complete.

    Side note: you can over-ride the Auto-Save setting in the user preference file to be locked on I don't see how this is any different.

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