Warning: Notes in Beta 1 still not ready for prime time
I've been working on this little project of mine, streamlining notes across three different Bible software platforms, including Logos. Because of the earlier warnings, I'd been adding notes to Logos in Windows via Parallels.
Since the Logos/Mac beta was released tonight, I thought I'd open my notes in the beta to see what they looked like. I gasped in horror to see any Greek word in my notes had been converted to a series of question marks. I gasped a second time as I watched the little sync symbol spin, knowing that my corrupted notes were being synced back to Logos' servers.
I guess I was fairly warned from earlier release notes. I just didn't realize that any corruption of my data would be so severe. I don't suppose there's any way to restore my notes from the Logos server from say...48 hours ago is there?
Lesson learned, I guess. I'll open the notes back up on the Mac when the beta's over, I suppose. Or maybe I'll create a test set and try them out every now and then.
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I've had a weird experience with notes as well, so I won't open this feature until we are in full release.
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gasped in horror to see any Greek word in my notes had been converted to a series of question marks. I gasped a second time as I watched the little sync symbol spin, knowing that my corrupted notes were being synced back to Logos' servers.
Have you checked your notes on the PC side to see if they really were corrupted?
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gasped in horror to see any Greek word in my notes had been converted to a series of question marks. I gasped a second time as I watched the little sync symbol spin, knowing that my corrupted notes were being synced back to Logos' servers.
Have you checked your notes on the PC side to see if they really were corrupted?
I had to test this out this morning when I saw the bug last night. It looks like any non-Latin characters don't get translated correctly when going from Mac -> PC. I copied a note from the NET Bible out into a Mac note, synced it to Windows. All the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic showed up in Windows as ????? and it then synced back to Mac as ?????.
I think I know what the issue is, but I'll have to wait until I get into the office to debug it.
Mobile Development Team Lead
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Have you checked your notes on the PC side to see if they really were corrupted?
Yes. First thing I did was close Logos/Mac. I then did a "pure" reboot into Windows via Bootcamp. There were question marks everywhere that I originally had Greek text. Interestingly, Hebrew was not affected.
I had to test this out this morning when I saw the bug last night. It looks like any non-Latin characters don't get translated correctly when going from Mac -> PC. I copied a note from the NET Bible out into a Mac note, synced it to Windows. All the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic showed up in Windows as ????? and it then synced back to Mac as ?????.
I think I know what the issue is, but I'll have to wait until I get into the office to debug it.
For whatever reason, mine did just the opposite. I created the notes in Windows and then it was opening them on the Mac that corrupted them. I'm very glad I've decided to make duplicates of my notes on other platforms. It will be easier to correct than other it would have been, but I still have a few dozen notes to fix.
I don't suppose there's a notes file that's kept in Windows that I could pull from a Time Machine backup--say from a couple of days ago--is there?
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So, to be sure, we're looking at this and will get it fixed ASAP.
That said is something that I want to better understand/clarify so that a) we make sure we're solving the entire issue and b) so that panic does not ensue.it was opening them on the Mac
Opening a note and simply viewing it (i.e. making zero modifications of any kind) should not result in any notes document data syncing. When we're talking about notes, we are talking about notes documents, yes?
When you opened your notes, did you make any modifications of any kind? Or did they sync with zero modifications made?Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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So, to be sure, we're looking at this and will get it fixed ASAP.
That said is something that I want to better understand/clarify so that a) we make sure we're solving the entire issue and b) so that panic does not ensue.it was opening them on the Mac
Opening a note and simply viewing it (i.e. making zero modifications of any kind) should not result in any notes document data syncing. When we're talking about notes, we are talking about notes documents, yes?
When you opened your notes, did you make any modifications of any kind? Or did they sync with zero modifications made?
It's hard to say with 100% certainty, Cameron. It was pretty late last night. I know for certain that I did not actually edit text in any of the notes. Did I click in one of my notes? I don't know; I don't remember. And yes, I'm speaking of notes that I've made on biblical references. Here is an example of one of the notes that used to have Greek in the parentheses but now has question marks. The quotation marks were also changed to question marks.
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I gasped in horror to see any Greek word in my notes had been converted to a series of question marks. I gasped a second time as I watched the little sync symbol spin, knowing that my corrupted notes were being synced back to Logos' servers.
So, as I'm trying to replicate the issue on my machine this morning, a couple of questions are coming up:
1) When using the term "notes", do you mean Notes documents accessed via File -> (some Notes document) or other notes elsewhere in the system?
2) By what means did you put Greek text into your notes? Copy and paste from a resource? Copy and paste from some outside tool? Hand typed?
I ask question #2 because this is one scenario I'm able to create that differs from the one you describe:
1) Create a new note (in a Notes document) on Windows
2) Add greek text to the note by copying a passage from the NA27 and pasting it into the note
3) sync
4) open the note on the Mac
When I do this, the greek shows up as expected (well, it shows up as Greek anyway, and not question marks).At this point, I have a couple of paths that I can go down:
Path A (no modifications):
If I simply view and close the note, even if I sync repeatedly, nothing should change. For the purposes of this discussion, "modifiy" refers to the user manipulating the text by adding characters or changing formatting. The *Mac* application doesn't view the corruption of the data (from Greek to question marks) as a modification. NOTE: On the Windows side, it appears that focusing the note is enough to persist the change; on Mac, you must actually make some modification.
Path B (modify):
If I make any modification of any kind to the note in question, then those changes will be synchronized. However, only *that particular note* (not all of the notes in the document) should be changed.
Further, if you *DO* make a change on the Mac, and that change *DOES* sync to Windows, the note will appear as all question marks. HOWEVER, if I don't edit it, nothing syncs ('cause nothing changed), so the note continues to appear properly (as greek) on the Mac.================================
I point all of this out for a few of reasons:
First, if we're not talking about the same thing when we say "notes" (e.g. Notes Documents), then I need to better understand what you mean so that I can fix the correct problem.
Second, if you're experiencing a scenario where unmodified notes are being synchronized, then that is a significant bug in its own right.
Third, based on my initial testing, the issues with non-English are more subtle than originally described and while we're working on this particular bug, it would be fantastic to understand and, therefore, address the issue as broadly as possible.
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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1) When using the term "notes", do you mean Notes documents accessed via File -> (some Notes document) or other notes elsewhere in the system?
Yes. I only have one set of notes that are tied to biblical references. Here is a screenshot from the File Menu; it's the set of notes called "Bible Notes":
2) By what means did you put Greek text into your notes? Copy and paste from a resource? Copy and paste from some outside tool? Hand typed?
I copied and pasted the note from another Mac program to Logos/Windows (via Parallels). The Greek text was exported from that program as unicode. I've opened and closed the notes multiple times in multiple Windows sessions and had no problem until I opened it last night in Logos/Mac.
Let me know how else I can help.
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I copied and pasted the note from another Mac program to Logos/Windows (via Parallels). The Greek text was exported from that program as unicode. I've opened and closed the notes multiple times in multiple Windows sessions and had no problem until I opened it last night in Logos/Mac.
Let me know how else I can help.
What is the other application? I ask so that I can actually try to replicate your scenario. Also, it's possible that having a copy of your file for that app would be useful, if you were willing to share it.
The challenge at the moment is this:
We cannot replicate what you describe (particularly the bit about Greek text entered in Windows showing up incorrect on Mac). In order to be certain of any fix, we need to reproduce it. In order to do that, I'll basically be attempting to "do what he did" as best I can until I can get it solved.
The part we *CAN* reproduce, and are working to fix is this:
If you have Greek text in a Note on the Mac, regardless of how it got there (entered on Windows, synced to Mac OR entered on Mac), when that text syncs to Windows, it shows up corrupted. However, that corruption doesn't sync back to the Mac unless the note is modified on Windows.
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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What is the other application? I ask so that I can actually try to replicate your scenario. Also, it's possible that having a copy of your file for that app would be useful, if you were willing to share it.
In keeping with forum policy, I'm only mentioning the two other products below at your direct request.
The originating program is Accordance. I'm attempting to streamline notes between Accordance, Logos, and BibleReader. The notes were already in Accordance, and I was copying and pasting them (using Unicode export) to Logos/Windows (since the Logos/Mac notes weren't quite stable yet) and to BibleReader via Evernote. This method worked fine for BibleReader; when I view the same notes in BibleReader on my iPad, the Greek holds. It worked fine for Logos until I opened the notes in Logos/Mac.
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One more thing--I also get question marks for quotation marks and sometimes spacing as well. Also, the Hebrew text in my notes which was copied and pasted in just the same way has remained just as it has been all along.
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In keeping with forum policy, I'm only mentioning the two other products below at your direct request.
Please do not use our forums to
- sell or give away anything or link to anything you’re selling or giving away—including Logos products
- promote or link to competitors
I guess I'd defer to Phil, but I'm pretty sure mentioning that mentioning Accordance for the purposes of providing info to help us troubleshoot a bug isn't the same as promoting or linking to them.
It worked fine for Logos until I opened the notes in Logos/Mac.
So, we'll be releasing a fix for the bug we can reproduce, which is an issue with non-ASCII characters syncing from Mac to Windows. I'll keep working to reproduce the other scenario as well and would welcome any more info you could provide from testing with the updated version. Of course, I'd suggest creating a test notes document with, perhaps, a single note in it to prevent the potential data issue you had in this case.
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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I published Beta 2 moments ago which includes a fix for the portion of the issue you described that we were able to reproduce this morning. Would love to hear the results of any further testing you do (in test Notes documents, of course) at your leisure.
Thank you for helping us track this down.
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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n keeping with forum policy, I'm only mentioning the two other products below at your direct request.
Have you seen this thread? Accordance, Bible Explorer, Biblesoft, BibleWorks, Laridian, Olive... I think Dan Pritchett has clarified forum guidelines on this matter.
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I published Beta 2 moments ago which includes a fix for the portion of the issue you described that we were able to reproduce this morning. Would love to hear the results of any further testing you do (in test Notes documents, of course) at your leisure.
Thank you for helping us track this down.
I have now fixed all the places where my notes in Logos were corrupted. I'm really glad now that I didn't have my notes in only one place. I used the same method as before--copying from Accordance and pasting into Logos and everything has held so far this time. To experiment, I created some of the notes in Logos/Windows and some in Logos/Mac, although primarily in Windows as the Mac version is still much more difficult to work with. I've opened and closed both programs, edited previously made notes on both platforms, and so far, everything has held.
A few thoughts and questions:
- I certainly see the advantage of having note files sync. But is there no set file on the computer tied to these notes? It would seem like a good idea—especially, perhaps, after editing a large number of notes—if this file could be backed up manually just in case corruption like that described in this thread were to happen again. Or perhaps if a warning were to be created like in MobileMe syncing. If my calendar gets corrupted (this has happened more than once), I will get a warning before a MobileMe sync if over 5% of my data is about to be changed. Then, I can opt not to let the change occur and I can create a new "correct" set of data from the calendar that has not been corrupted.
- Notes on the Mac end of things still aren't all that usable. I cannot change fonts or font sizes on the Mac. Sometimes I cannot add formatting like bold or italics to a text and other times I can. My guess is this has to do with the font, but I cannot change fonts for the notes on the Mac.
- The formatting button bar itself looks very non-standard. Dare I say it, but the formatting bar looks better in the Windows version.
- Notes in the Mac version don't "sit still." The expand and contract every now and then, visibly moving as they switch from simply a line with the reference to the entire open note. Sometimes that happens when trying to enter content.
- There ought to be a way to keep notes visually in sync with a biblical text. In other words, if I have Gal 1:2 at the top of the screen and I also have a note for Gal 1:2, that note ought to automatically align itself with it.
- If I place a note on a verse that immediately follows a section heading, the note icon automatically rests adjacent to the heading, not to the verse as in other instances. I'd prefer that the icon simply rests next to the verse; otherwise, I might not see it.
My goal above is not to criticize but to be helpful; I'll continue to help test some of these features as they are updated.
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Hey I just want to speak to point/question 1. The rest of your points I think are connected to the Notes feature not being done let alone polished.
Here David pointed out to a user why sometimes when there is a Sync issue a duplicate is made. I think this may answer your question about possible corruption. The reason a second is made is a reaction to any sync problems. I may be wrong and if I am I'm sure Cameron will correct me. :-)
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Here David pointed out to a user why sometimes when there is a Sync issue a duplicate is made. I think this may answer your question about possible corruption. The reason a second is made is a reaction to any sync problems. I may be wrong and if I am I'm sure Cameron will correct me. :-)
Except in my case, from what I can tell, a duplicate file was not made. I just ended up with corrupted data in my notes file, both in Windows and on the Mac. I wish I could have selected the correct file which would have kept me from having to re-enter data. Fortunately, it didn't take too long.
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Favorites doesn't open for me. No errors. Clicking on it in Tools has no observable effect.
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But when I opened collections, I gave me a window with two panels, the first of which is favorites. And when I closed collections, the whole window closed.
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All your syncable document data is stored locally in several SQLite databases under /Users/<your_user_id>/Library/Application Support/Logos4/Documents/<random_chars>/Documents
If you regularly back this folder up, you'll effectively have a second copy of your Notes databases, as well as Visual Filters, Prayer Lists, Clippings, Reading Plans, etc.
Mobile Development Team Lead
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For the record, I did ask about this yesterday. It'd have been nice to know before I recreated the affected notes. I could have pulled the backup from Time Machine. Regardless, I know if there's a next time. Thanks.
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Favorites doesn't open for me. No errors. Clicking on it in Tools has no observable effect.
Your problem is being lost because you posted it in an ongoing discussion of a totally unrelated problem. You need to start a new thread.
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For the record, I did ask about this yesterday. It'd have been nice to know before I recreated the affected notes. I could have pulled the backup from Time Machine. Regardless, I know if there's a next time. Thanks.
If you were to have restored this file from backup, the software would've detected that there were pending, more recent changes on the server (coming from the Windows version) and immediately blown away the "good" values in your "newly restored" version.
The notes file is a database that contains dates regarding the last time things were changed and sync state, so the app will just believe that it needs to "catch up". There are a couple of convoluted ways you could restore this file, but they're both fairly convoluted and likely wouldn't have saved you any time in this instance. Knowing that you had additional copies of the notes, the path you ended up taking was probably the optimal one given the circumstances. NOTE: I'm deliberately *NOT* articulating the process(es) in detail here because they're essentially developer-only tasks. Mistakes in the process could actually *cause* some undesirable collateral damage.
Where such a backup *would* be useful is a case where a person has absolutely no other copy of their Notes data. In that scenario, the raw notes data could be extracted from a local backup copy using one of the aforementioned complex processes and data could likely be salvaged, preventing an outright catastrophe.
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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certainly see the advantage of having note files sync. But is there no set file on the computer tied to these notes? It would seem like a good idea—especially, perhaps, after editing a large number of notes—if this file could be backed up manually just in case corruption like that described in this thread were to happen again. Or perhaps if a warning were to be created like in MobileMe syncing. If my calendar gets corrupted (this has happened more than once), I will get a warning before a MobileMe sync if over 5% of my data is about to be changed. Then, I can opt not to let the change occur and I can create a new "correct" set of data from the calendar that has not been corrupted.
See my response a post or two ahead of this one. There is such a file, and Tom mentions it earlier in this thread. However, just restoring them from backup probably won't have the desired results. However, it *is* good to keep such a backup around, because in the event of a catastrophic loss where no other copy of the data was available, the files *could* be used to recover lost data.
Notes on the Mac end of things still aren't all that usable. I cannot change fonts or font sizes on the Mac. Sometimes I cannot add formatting like bold or italics to a text and other times I can. My guess is this has to do with the font, but I cannot change fonts for the notes on the Mac.
For the time being, you can right click on text and bring up Apple's stock formatting panel. When the toolbar is completed, that ability will be removed. In the meantime, though, you can use it to change fonts and font attributes.
If you're having trouble applying style attributes (bold, italic) with certain fonts, I'd be happy to know which fonts so that I can ensure that it is, in fact, a font limitation.
The formatting button bar itself looks very non-standard. Dare I say it, but the formatting bar looks better in the Windows version.
As for the button styling, that's trivial to change, and I suspect when our UI guru gets around to changing it, it'll look much, much better. The icons on the buttons, however, are actually identical to those in the Windows product.
otes in the Mac version don't "sit still." The expand and contract every now and then, visibly moving as they switch from simply a line with the reference to the entire open note. Sometimes that happens when trying to enter content.
I'll take a look at that. I suspect what you're seeing is the panel re-draw after it has grabbed new sync data from the server. This is probably a result of having two copies of the app (Windows and Mac) open at the same time and making changes on both. It happens on Windows, too, but it's less disruptive visually.
There ought to be a way to keep notes visually in sync with a biblical text. In other words, if I have Gal 1:2 at the top of the screen and I also have a note for Gal 1:2, that note ought to automatically align itself with it.
That's an interesting idea. There are more than a few challenges involved (namely, what's the proper behavior if you have 4 notes linked to Gal 1:2 in a single Notes document, but via varied references (e.g. Gal 1, Gal1:2-30, Gal 1-5)?). There's actually a specific forum for suggestions: http://community.logos.com/forums/28.aspx
If I place a note on a verse that immediately follows a section heading, the note icon automatically rests adjacent to the heading, not to the verse as in other instances. I'd prefer that the icon simply rests next to the verse; otherwise, I might not see it.
In this case, as with the previous item, a reasonable suggestion. http://community.logos.com/forums/28.aspx
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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Cameron, thanks for the detailed response.
A few replies from me for sake of clarification.
Regarding the actual file notes are kept it, after the dust settles for Logos/Mac (and Logos/Windows for that matter), there might still be room for creating some kind of safeguard for using a backed up file so that a corrupted file cannot overwrite it. It didn't take me much time to fix some of my corrupted notes last week, but I'd hate to think about doing that if I had hundreds or even thousands of notes present. Honestly, it makes me a bit leery of investing a lot of time into Logos' note system. However, considering the fact that I'm placing the same notes in three different platforms might be a good safeguard.
I wonder what would happen if a later date was manually applied to the file. From what you are telling me, I would think that it would not be overwritten. Again, I think the MobileMe kind of warning--"More than 5% of your data is about to be changed"--with an option to reject the change would suffice.
The ability to pull up the system font panel is helpful. Thanks for that tip.
As for the button styling, that's trivial to change, and I suspect when our UI guru gets around to changing it, it'll look much, much better. The icons on the buttons, however, are actually identical to those in the Windows product.
I suppose the icons themselves are the same, but the actual layout is quite different. Consider:
Above: Windows version.
Above: Mac version
The Windows toolbar looks fairly standard; the Mac version does not. I realize the actual bitmapped icons might be the same, but the way they are laid out is significantly different.
As for the issue with the notes expanding and contracting, it is definitely not from having two copies of Logos open at the same time. I'm very careful not to do this because I assume it could cause problems. I opened my notes again just now, and it did it right as I was about to change the formatting of a word. I lost my selection of the text. This can be a bit frustrating, but reinforces my opinion that the notes feature on the Mac isn't all that usable right now. I'll continue to edit them in Windows and try back every other beta or so.
The suggestion for notes alignment is not a new idea in Bible software. The question about varied references should be handled the same way that commentaries behave when linked to a text. In other words, there ought to be a way to include one's notes in a link set.
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See my response a post or two ahead of this one. There is such a file, and Tom mentions it earlier in this thread. However, just restoring them from backup probably won't have the desired results. However, it *is* good to keep such a backup around, because in the event of a catastrophic loss where no other copy of the data was available, the files *could* be used to recover lost data.
Has the original corruption problem been fixed? I have not installed the Mac Beta because I have quite a few notes created in the Windows version that I don't want to lose.
Also, I am heavily involved in the Windows Beta, so I'm not sure I want to be involved in another testing situation.
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Has the original corruption problem been fixed? I have not installed the Mac Beta because I have quite a few notes created in the Windows version that I don't want to lose.
I'm going to assume that by "original corruption problem", you mean the one that started this thread. And the answer is, yes, as far as we can tell. There was a bug with synchronization on the Mac that was not properly handling non-ASCII characters. The bug affected more than Notes, but that was certainly the most consequential thing it affected. That bug was fixed in Beta 2 and was specifically noted in the release notes.
We could not (and still cannot) replicate exactly what was original described—that simply opening a Note document caused a modification and resulted in those changes being synchronized back to Windows. We've gone over the code more than a few times and some modification of the Notes document would've had to occur for that to happen (add a note, remove a note, etc).
The original poster in this thread has even confirmed in this thread that he's re-imported the content that was initially corrupted and hasn't seen any issues with it.
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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The Windows toolbar looks fairly standard; the Mac version does not. I realize the actual bitmapped icons might be the same, but the way they are laid out is significantly different.
The only meaningful difference appears to be that the buttons in the (current, yet-to-be-properly-styled) Mac toolbar, the buttons are bordered and textured whereas on Windows they are not. I'm not sure how one defines "fairly standard". The Windows toolbar appears to mimic the Microsoft Office toolbar styling. In iWork, Apple uses textured, bordered buttons (albeit of a slightly different shape and they tend to use segmented controls to group items). Again, our UI guy will weigh in at some point (internally, not on the forums) and I'll restyle the toolbar accordingly.
As for the issue with the notes expanding and contracting, it is definitely not from having two copies of Logos open at the same time. I'm very careful not to do this because I assume it could cause problems. I opened my notes again just now, and it did it right as I was about to change the formatting of a word. I lost my selection of the text.
I'd be interested in seeing your logs when this happens. The only way I can replicate this behavior is to open a notes document with unsynchronized changes on the server and then, when it picks up those changes, the panel re-draws. I'll continue playing with it.
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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The original poster in this thread has even confirmed in this thread that he's re-imported the content that was initially corrupted and hasn't seen any issues with it.
Thanks for the confirmation. Maybe, I am being overly cautious. As I mentioned in another thread, I am not sure I want to be involved in beta testing on both platforms. the 4.1 Beta has my attention right now.
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I wonder what would happen if a later date was manually applied to the file. From what you are telling me, I would think that it would not be overwritten.
In order for a date to be "manually applied to the file", you'd have to edit the contents of the file. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend that any user take to hand-editing the content databases like this because the ramifications of such editing is not likely to be well-understood by users and there may be unintended consequences.
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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