Save Settings / Save view not working

[freebrowser1]

Expected Behaviour

When clicking on Configuration Window => Save Settings and Save View, the current location (set by Location window) and configuration settings (e.g. horizon, daylight, etc on bottom bar) should be saved.

Actual Behaviour

These settings are not saved.

Steps to reproduce

• Location settings, set a different location
• Change a few settings on the bottom bar (e.g. horizon, cardinal points, grids, constellation figures)
• Go to Configuration Window and click both Save Settings and Save View
• Exit Stellarium and restart Stellarium Settings are still the old unchanged settings and location.

System

• Stellarium version: 24.2 and 24.3
• Operating system: Ubuntu 22.04 and macOS 15
• Graphics Card: ?

Logfile

If possible, attach the logfile log.txt from your user data directory. Look into the Guide for its location. log.txt

[gzotti]

By design. You save location with the "Use current location as default" (or similar) button in the Location panel.

[github-actions[bot]]

This is not a bug! This is a feature...

[freebrowser1]

By design. You save location with the "Use current location as default" (or similar) button in the Location panel. So "by design" the save current view / current location don't work ??? It used to work properly in earlier versions.

[10110111]

So "by design" the save current view / current location don't work ???

By design saving view only saves view, i.e. direction of look and field of view.

It used to work properly in earlier versions.

You've been using very old versions then. This change was introduced in 4aab2cdf73a2a49e499566949a5b7e5e3f88531a, which was included in v0.15.2 released in 2017.

[10110111]

Actually, I see what you mean regarding the landscape. It's indeed not saved by "Save settings". This doesn't look intuitive to me indeed, but well, at least we have an option to save it hidden in another place.

Current location does get saved for me in current master.

@gzotti Is there a reason why landscape is not saved on saving all settings?

[github-actions[bot]]

Oops... Sorry for mistake @freebrowser1

[gzotti]

The default landscape is stored, openly visible, in the landscape panel. The default location is stored, openly visible, in the location panel. Both are fundamentally important settings, at least for those use cases where users actually see more in a loaded Landscape than a "green meadow" decoration: An actual physical location with a correctly defined horizon.

We had dozens of repeating questions as to why settings are not remembered and we have to explicitly press "save settings". In many other programs of the past decade, you just click any single checkbox, and the program remembers every single sub-setting for the next run. @alex-w has a strict opinion on keeping the "save settings" button, while I much prefer this more modern behaviour and am slowly adding the StelApp::immediateSave(...) calls for power users (who currently have to set a hidden flag to activate this). We already have a few settings which behave like that (not needing a global save), like Colors or the selection of plugins to be loaded. Once all settings are "optionally immediate", there will appear another checkbox in the config dialog, and with this activated, the "save settings" buttons in plugins and Config dialog will become hidden as it is then no longer needed. Still for this mode, settings for default location, default landscape and default skyculture will remain manual decisions, to be set in their respective dialogs, and a per-use-case change of them will not be stored for the next run, while e.g. selection of DSO catalogs/filters or gridlines will be used again in the next run.

[10110111]

@alex-w has a strict opinion on keeping the "save settings" button

I also have a strict opinion on this, since having the settings saved immediately precludes free experimentation, requiring to either remember what settings you changed in this session and not forget to manually revert them, or backing up the config file before running Stellarium.

And in my view, the Save Settings button should be the thing that will actually save all the changes that you did, including location and landscape (which could also be saved individually by the checkbox, although the checkbox looks like a strange choice of widget for this).

[gzotti]

These used to be separate checkboxes already in 2008 IIRC. Yes, strange choice. For me, the singular global change is too strong. When I experiment, possibly having changed 25 other settings, and decide I want to keep that one newly-found setting but not the others, I would have to quit the program, restart, flip the one newly-found (which of course I also have to remember), and set that one, then do the global store. Everything can be found in the GUI, so yes, it's a matter of taste and getting used to one habit. Supporting both ways is likely the best solution.

[freebrowser1]

Well, I tested it again. When there is a location defined in the horizon panorama file (landscape.ini) then after restart this location will override the location set via the user interface. I deleted the location entry and now it does work and the settings do work as well after a restart. Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 and macOS 15.

[gzotti]

And if you deactivate the setting "Take location from landscape" next to "use this landscape as default" it should also not be loaded. Then your landscape is just decoration.