Legend Backup - Sicherung der Legenden anlegensichern bzw

Legend Backup - Save legends in backup file or change backup settings

Legend Backup enables you to create backups of legends manually. Use the function to save the current state of your legends permanently or under a particular name respectively to change path, name or settings of your backup file. Normally a manual backup is not necessary because Arc4You saves the legends automatically before a legend is being modified.

The themes which legends should be backuped must be active.

Backup Legends: Select for which themes a back shall be created:

None: None (only of use if parameters or path of the backup file is changed).

Active Themes: The active themes of the current view.

All Themes: All themes of the current view.

All Views: All themes of all views of the project.

Backup Type: Determine if the legends are saved temporarily or permanently.

Temporary: The legend is automatically removed from the backup file if the maximum number or the maximum duration of 60 days is exceeded.

Permanent: The legend is not automatically removed from the backup file (even if the maximum number or maximum duration is exceeded).

Description: You can give an arbitrary name to the saved legends (max. 25 letters, otherwise the name can't be fully displayed in the history list - see Legend Restore). The legends of all selected themes will be saved under this name.

Enable Auto Backup: Activates or deactivates the automatic backup. If activated the legends are automatically saved before a legend is being modified. If it is deactivated, backups are only created by the user by calling Legend Backup.

Remove Legends after ... Days: You can define for how many days a legend shall stay in the backup file (live-span of the legend - elder states will be removed regularly). With value 0 all backups will be kept for unlimited duration (it will only be removed if the maximum number of legends per theme is exceeded). Default: 60 days.

Keep Legend ... States: You can define how many legends per theme shall remain saved in the backup file (i.e. how many changes can be redone). Default: 20 legends. With value 0 an unlimited number of legends per theme is kept.

Backup File: By clicking on the corresponding button you can choose a new path or file name for the backup file. If you want to use an existing file, you have to choose it and answer the question Replace Existing file? with (the original file, however, won't be replaced or removed).

Remark: If you change path or name of the backup file, a new (empty) file is created. The old file stays untouched and can still be used by calling this function and choosing it again.

There are three different strategies for the administration of legend backups:

One backup file per computer (locally in the temporary directory).

In this backup file all legends of all ArcView projects handled by a user on this computer are saved (default setting). The advantage is, that there are no backup files for every project and only those legends are saved and shown in the common restoration file, that were used by the user of that computer. On the other hand the legend can only be restored on the computer and with the user's name on which it was changed (for other users or on an other computer no restoration is possible). Number and duration of the backups should be set sparsely (e.g. 10 backups for 30 days) for not creating a backup file that is too big.

One backup file per project (in the same directory as the project file):

In this backup file all legends of an ArcView project are saved. This is recommended if several users are working with the same ArcView project. The disadvantage is the creation of a separate backup file for every ArcView project. Number and duration can be set generous (e.g. 50 backups per themes for 360 days), because in this case the backup files stay rather small.

One backup file per drive/path:

This strategy is a compromise between the two above mentioned ones and combines both of their advantages. One single backup file takes the legends of all ArcView projects in a project path. It can be used by all users and is still small of size (don't save more than 5 - 10 projects in it).