TOPIC: New Custom Template Frustration

I have been trying to get my custom template completed, but every time I save it and then shut the program down and re-open the program later, the custom template is missing everything that I had worked on.  I am talking hours of work.  I can save my template while the program is running and close the template and then re-open and all of my changes and additions are intact.  It is only when I completely shut down the application and restart it later that I lose all of my work.  Also, in creating the template, I have several main menu items and sub-menus under each.  An example is such that my main mwnu has a windows system and under it sub-menus that depict bedrooms, baths, etc.  Each of these sub-menus I have two panels that depict type of window and material.  i use type in one panel and material in the other panel.  This works fine for a while and then when making a sub-menu and typing type in one panel and material in the other, I get the message taht I cannot use those descriptions because they have been used in the panel already.  This does not make sense.  Each sub-menu is supposed to be an entity unto itself and I should be able to repeat panel descriptions from one sub-menu to the other.  The program seems to be treating all of the sub-menus as one menu.  How can we create numerous sub-menus with the same panel descriptions?  This is desperately needed.  And how come this works for a while and then it stops working?

Dominic, I started from the blank template, too.  I cannot seem to get my custom template off of the ground and have to create a make-shift template every time I get an inspection and business is starting to pick up.  I need my custom template.  I have spent hours/days and just to lose everything that I worked on.

Hi Robert,

I think you're missing a point in how the templates are treated. Most, if not all of this is covered in the Animated Tutorial, so if the tutorial needs more explanations please let me know and I will expand it to be more detailed.

The main Menus at the top of the program which in the default are "Interior, Exterior, Utilities, etc" have absolutely no impact on the report. They are only for your organization. You can throw everything under one Menu or under 10, the report will look the same.

What's IS important are the items under each menu. Each item under a menu (i.e. Bathrooms, Bedrooms, Kitchen) becomes it's own page in the report, we'll call these a section of the report. Since each section of the report starts it's own page, the title you use is shown at the top of the page on the report.

Within each section of the report (i.e. Kitchen) you have a bunch of tabs going across the screen such as: Ceiling, Walls, Sink, Floor, Stove, etc. The tabs at the top also have NO impact on the report. They are purely for your organization, they are a short notation about what is within the tab itself. You don't have to have long descriptions as a tab as they would fill up the entire screen.

On each tab you have panels. There are two types of panels. Damage Panels (which include the red/black area) which are used for observations and Selection Panels which are used for material types, model numbers, insulation thickness, etc. The title of the Damage Panel is what appears on the report as an item within a 'section'. If there is a selection panel on the same tab as a Damage Panel then it is listed WITH the Damage Panel as it's materials, model numbers or whatever you enter in the description box. Because the Damage Panel title is what prints on the report, it must be unique within each section of the report. You cannot have two Damage Panels in the Kitchen called Sink. If you did they would contain the identical information as the program stores all data as the name of the Section+Name of Panel (i.e. Kitchen+Sink).

Hopefully that makes sense. I think you are looking at the tab name and thinking that shows on the report, it's not. What you CAN change and make Observations or whatever in every section is the Description Text for each section. That appears when you click Edit Comments on the left side.

I haven't seen other people with an issue where the templates don't store on a Mac, and have not been able to replicate this myself. Please do a quick test. Open up the default template. Add a couple of comments to a section, click on Save Template and save it as some new name like "Roberts Template". Then close the program, reopen it, click Open Template and open up "Roberts Template" and see if your items are there.

Also, are you saving your inspections? Every inspection has an embedded copy of the template within it. If you open an inspection from last week you can simply click Save Template and give it a new name and you now have a copy of your template from last week.

Please try the test above and let me know how it goes!

Dominic

Hi Robert,

A few more questions so I can narrow this down as much as possible.

What version of Mac are you using? What version of the program are you using (click on About)?

Dominic

Dominic, I seem to found what has happened to me with saving templates.  I have been making a custom template with the template editor and then clicking the save button within that editor.  Every time I did that, I would be fine until I closed out of the entire program and then re-opened to find that my custom template did not save.  So, I went to the tutorial and read it over.  The tutorial says that I need to do file>save template as in order to save the template.  I then did this and my template saved  and showed up after I closed the program and re-opened.  So, I do not know what the save button accomplishes in the template editor, but it does not actual permanently save the template.  It seems to only save the template additions and changes as l work, but not permanently if I exit the program.  Also, my check box for making the custom template open as the default template does not seem to work.  It does not matter if I follow the tutorial or instructions, the template will not open in default.  The balnk template seems to be the only one that will open on default no matter what.

My MAC OS is 10.4.11 and my Inspection program is 2.5.8

Thanks Dominic for all u do.  These growing pains are tough, but well worth it.

Hi Robert,

Ok, that explains it all. You definitely need to click File->Save Template, or just click the Save Template Button along the top of the program. Clicking Save in the editor really just 'updates' what you are doing. There used to be two buttons on the template editor "Save" and "Cancel". Canceling would undo everything you had done. As the template editor has become a lot more complex over the last few months the ability to Undo changes has become monumental so I removed that option, just leaving the Save button. I can see how that would be confusing. I am going to change that button to say "Ok" in the next version after this incident to avoid any confusion in the future. Thanks for the patience and feedback, I'm glad to hear that there actually was no issue with saving.

As far as setting a template as default goes. You must open your new template. Then go to save template and check the box for default template. Then save. Let me know if that's not working for you properly, I just tested it and it seems to work fine.