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[brdad]

After a few emails back and forth with LHR and not yet coming to a conclusion (but they had not given up), today out of desperation I totally deleted (well, moved) all the Designer files, uninstalled 1.187, and then did a fresh install. I tried to see how many holes I could drill in a project and managed to get fairly consistently just under 1400, which I'd think is doing pretty well. So, I kept adding my old folders and files back into the users\dave\carvewright folder and testing Designer each time until it finally crashed.


A few years ago when someone was selling a collection all the patterns and projects from the forum on ebay, someone made a DVD of all the files that had been posted on the forums and made those files freely available. Within that collection are 897 pattern files, about 54 MB total. It appears the pattern files in that folder were causing the issue!

I have verified it's not any particular pattern file. It is just the sheer volume and/or memory used loading these files on start-up. I'm not sure why Designer loads other directories or if there is a way around it, but am hoping LHR will send back some answer to that soon.


So, it appears it's not just how large your favorites file is, but also how many pattern files you have in your carvewright directory or any sub-folder within that directory.

[fwharris]

It is great you were able to figure out the cause of all your problems. Lets call it karma for buying that CD off of Ebay!

One thing I do with all my CW patterns and projects is to save them in my documents and not in any of the CarveWright folders that are made when doing the software install.

[brdad]

I didn't buy the CD! Someone here made the files available as an easy download for free to counter the ebay sales. Ediit: I had to look it up, it was LittleRedWoodshop that posted it, here is the forum link: http://forum.carvewright.com/showthr...048#post173048

And putting them in the documents folder is an option, but I like having the files in one area for ease of navigation should I want to retrieve one. I figured having them outside the pattern folder would be sufficient. It doesn't seem logical Designer should scan all folders for pattern files and load them into memory - I thought that's what the favorites file is for - but maybe they have good reasoning and will explain in their reply. Maybe we're better off not to save any pattern files in the provided pattern folder.

Regardless, anyone who tried to open my file and failed may want to check the location(s) of their pattern folders.

[fwharris]

Ah restored my faith and thanks for the bump on the post!

Any pattern and collections saved into this location C:\Users\Owner\CarveWright (Owner might be a different name) will show up in your pattern listing (favorites) file and I would stay away from saving any into this location.

[brdad]

Any pattern and collections saved into this location C:\Users\Owner\CarveWright (Owner might be a different name) will show up in your pattern listing (favorites) file and I would stay away from saving any into this location.

Is that correct? I thought you have to willingly save a pattern to favorites for it to show up in your pattern list?
If so, then not saving patterns to the directory makes sense, otherwise Designer really has no reason to scan the folder for patterns on load.

Maybe I'll have to test this when I have time later today...

[fwharris]

I just moved the file with the arrow into that folder location and it now is in the pattern list. Note it is not in the actual favorites list..

[SteveNelson46]

I just moved the file with the arrow into that folder location and it now is in the pattern list. Note it is not in the actual favorites list..

This "Feature" has always been a PITA to me. The Designer lacks a true pattern list handler. Instead, they just scan the entire user profile at start-up and include any .ptn file it finds in the pattern list. Okay, I guess, for novice computer users but, a real level of frustration for others. I don't keep any pattern files in my user profile including any sub-folder of "My Documents" which is in my user profile also.

[fwharris]

This "Feature" has always been a PITA to me. The Designer lacks a true pattern list handler. Instead, they just scan the entire user profile at start-up and include any .ptn file it finds in the pattern list. Okay, I guess, for novice computer users but, a real level of frustration for others. I don't keep any pattern files in my user profile including any sub-folder of "My Documents" which is in my user profile also.

Agree!!! and yes I just save into a "documents" location and never into any of the CarveWright folders that are generated from the software install. These being C:\Users\Owner\CarveWright and in the C:\Program Files (x86) locations..

[brdad]

I just moved the file with the arrow into that folder location and it now is in the pattern list. Note it is not in the actual favorites list..

Ah, thanks - I see now. Not that I understand WHY it is programmed that way, but that's irrelevant I guess. And it explains why I had some duplicates and triplicates.

Pattern handling is definitely one area of Designer I think is lacking - I guess for now I will save my files elsewhere and clear the favorites of any patterns I don't use often.

The hardest part is now I have to go through my old favorites file and find the few patterns I saved to the favorites list without actually saving a pattern file and save those. Not the smartest move, but I know I have done it on a few occasions.

[mca]

Here is what is happening:
When Designer starts up it looks at all the patterns in the CarveWright folder (and recursively ALL sub-folders you have created there)
On Windows Vista, 7, and 8: C:\Users\<username>\CarveWright
On Windows Xp: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\CarveWright
On MacOS X: /Users/<username>/Library/CarveWright
It generates a thumbnail for each pattern, these appear in the Pattern List.
Each Carving you place can have one or more thumbnail images created for it also, these appear in the Carving List.
Each font installed gets a sample text thumbnail, these appear in the Text Editor dialog.


There are several other ways images can be generated but they tend not to grow the longer you use the program, unlike the 3 cases above.

Each of these thumbnails uses one (or more) of a limited resource in Windows called a GDI Handle.
You can see how many a program uses with the Windows Task Manager.
With Task Manager open select: View>Select Columns... and check the GDI Objects box.

The limit is 10000 by default, and if a program exceeds that Windows will kill it.
The limit can be changed with a registry hack, but may make Windows unstable/unusable.