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How do I prevent Golly [ golly-3.2-win-32bit ] from deleting the Comments that I put in my Pattern Files ?

AND as a separate issue ( IDK whether to make a new post or not )

How do I get the Status Bar in Golly to display the information Horizontally ( it always seems to want to display it Vertically ) ?

otismo wrote: February 14th, 2020, 5:12 pmHow do I prevent Golly [ golly-3.2-win-32bit ] from deleting the Comments that I put in my Pattern Files ?

The rule is that if you don't change the filename or file extension, the comments should be preserved. What exact deletion behavior are you seeing?

otismo wrote: February 14th, 2020, 5:12 pmAND as a separate issue ( IDK whether to make a new post or not )

How do I get the Status Bar in Golly to display the information Horizontally ( it always seems to want to display it Vertically )?

Hit Ctrl+E. Sounds like you have View > Show Exact Numbers turned on.

MY comments in MY Pattern Files disappear after I run them in Golly.

Also ANY OTHER Pattern Files I add have THEIR comments stripped out as well.

I have for a long time been saving textfile versions in a Save Directory and am used to it.

That Ctrl+E View > Show Exact Numbers was somehow unfathomable to me not knowing that "Exact Numbers" means in the status bar

is what was being refered to - I think "Display Vertical" and "Display Horizontal" would work better for people who may be getting

extremely frustrated at the vertical status bar display robbing their viewport real estate and THEN after an exhaustive search

thru docs not finding anything spelling out this issue ANYWHERE - but "Exact Numbers" is directly below "Status Bar"

and I suppose I should be in the habit of jumping to conclusions by now...

Thank You !

I feel more in control already...

otismo wrote: February 15th, 2020, 9:14 pm MY comments in MY Pattern Files disappear after I run them in Golly.

Also ANY OTHER Pattern Files I add have THEIR comments stripped out as well.

I have for a long time been saving textfile versions in a Save Directory and am used to it.

You know, I just noticed that problem recently again. I wonder if it's new behavior in Golly 3.x.

My memory from Golly 2.x is that the comments didn't get preserved if you save a pattern with a new filename. But they _did_ get preserved if you made edits to a file and then saved with the same name.

But now when I open a file with comments like, say, spacefiller.rle, I can see the comments --

and then when I run the pattern, I can still see the comments --

and when I reset the pattern I can still see the comments --

and when I optionally run it again, and then draw some new cells in the pattern, I can still see the comments --

but as soon as I run the resulting pattern for one tick, the comments all disappear.

Resetting doesn't bring the comments back. It's necessary to re-load the pattern to get the comments back again.

So if you make cell edits and run the pattern, you lose the comments. On the other hand, comments seem to be safe if you make cell edits, then save immediately. And then you could re-open that saved pattern, run it, and save it again, and the comments will still stick.

... Can't say as I understand that behavior. Haven't tried digging through Golly's code yet to find out. I have a vague memory of an explanation that if the pattern has changed and has a new name, it's not the same pattern any more and so the comments might not apply. But it really doesn't seem like very good behavior.

I copy commented .rle code from these Forums and Elsewhere

paste into Golly and save the file, and the saved file has the

comments stripped out. Also any of my elaborately

commented pattern files ( that I make for my demos )

once I click on them to run them in Golly

all the comments are stripped out.

I am used to it and try to be careful.

But it must be really frustrating

to anyone who wants to do the job

of commenting ( even their own )

pattern files. I notice many new

pattern files are un-commented...

otismo wrote: February 25th, 2020, 11:13 am I copy commented .rle code from these Forums and Elsewhere

paste into Golly and save the file, and the saved file has the

comments stripped out.

Paste with Ctrl+V will do that, definitely. If you're pasting into an empty universe, it's always safer to do it with Ctrl+Shift+O (Open from Clipboard). That way you always get the correct rule, and you get to keep the comments.

I'll bring this up on the golly-test list and see if there's anything that can be done here. At least it should be possible to fix the issue with disappearing comments when you run a pattern, since I think that's relatively new behavior. Is anyone still running an old version of Golly (2.x, or pre-3.2) who can do a quick check to see if the same behavior happens?

dvgrn wrote: February 25th, 2020, 1:10 pm

otismo wrote: February 25th, 2020, 11:13 am I copy commented .rle code from these Forums and Elsewhere

paste into Golly and save the file, and the saved file has the

comments stripped out.

Paste with Ctrl+V will do that, definitely. If you're pasting into an empty universe, it's always safer to do it with Ctrl+Shift+O (Open from Clipboard). That way you always get the correct rule, and you get to keep the comments.

I'll bring this up on the golly-test list and see if there's anything that can be done here. At least it should be possible to fix the issue with disappearing comments when you run a pattern, since I think that's relatively new behavior. Is anyone still running an old version of Golly (2.x, or pre-3.2) who can do a quick check to see if the same behavior happens?

I'm using Golly 3.0 right now (too lazy to update), I can verify that the same behaviour does not happen.

Hunting wrote: March 29th, 2020, 7:28 amI'm using Golly 3.0 right now (too lazy to update), I can verify that the same behaviour does not happen.

Thanks, very good to know! I'll bring this up on golly-test, see if we can find what changed.