Tips for organizing your modules into a custom module set

[ErikJon]

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UPDATED JANUARY 2017

Introduction

Hello, friends.

I have over 1,800 modules installed in TheWord, and, as you might imagine, I have found it difficult to find things without first creating and organizing a "custom module set."

I did some light research online regarding how libraries and Christian bookstores organize their books, but I found that these systems did not offer quite enough detail regarding the subcategories. I have even sent out requests to theological librarians, but got very little response, so I decided to try it on my own.

Of course, the scheme that one decides upon will always reflect his own theological point of view, as he may choose to categorize certain denominations, as "cults," for example, while another person may see them as orthodox branches of Christianity. I am offering what could be considered a Baptist perspective, but I think it would also align perfectly with the beliefs of many other denominations that come to mind.

Please note that the structure proposed below does not necessary reflect my own beliefs, as I sometimes collect unorthodox material for comparative purposes, for special studies on the cults, and so on. Likewise, don't be surprised if you see that I have a folder entitled "Defense of Calvinism" even though I may not necessarily believe in Calvinism, for example.

I wanted to offer this post partly to help other users who are at a loss for an efficient way to organize their modules. On the other hand, I also wanted to get help for myself, by means of feedback from you, regarding how to make this arrangement more efficient than it already is. Feel free to point out any issue that you like, as no offense will be taken.

Some users have only 50 modules installed, so they will not have much need for such an extensive filing system as the one proposed below. If you find mine to be too complicated for your needs, I suggest that you begin by simply using the root folder structure of the 20 main folders. Otherwise, if you need a bit more organization than that, then use that together with the first level of sub-folders alone, and ignore anything below that (i.e, the third level, the fourth, the fifth, etc.)

You will not find modules on every subject, in my screenshot, as I do not own modules on every subject. Nevertheless, feel free to suggest additions or omissions, and I will likely make adjustments to my layout accordingly.

Note that my modules themselves are not depicted here, but rather only the folders that contain them. If you want a sample of how some of my individual commentary modules fit into this scheme, see far below. Of course, feel free to upload your own screenshots to illustrate your own scheme, if you feel that it would appeal to the rest of us. I am by no means the expert here.

If you find any mistakes, duplicates, miscategorizations, missing categories, or even overlap, please let me know.

Please remember that the process of developinig a custom module folder structure is always in flux, so what you see below will be continually updated on my end, and the new version, uploaded only occasionally. Just yesterday I made some major changes that I will share.

I think that, in the long run, the result of this discussion will be very profitable to all users who are beginning to ask themselves how to organize their modules in a more logical and coherent fashion, particularly as their collection increases in size. I think I will begin organizing the comments into a separate list of tips, and add new tips, little by little, every month, so feel free to check back often.

Tips for organizing your custom module set

Use temporary folders when needed. Notice in the screenshot that I am now using folders within each main category, entitled " *UNFILED." Filing miscellaneous modules in these subfolders makes the menus much shorter and easier to manipulate in the main reading layout.

Use an "asterisk folder" when needed. The asterisk in any folder title, when placed at the beginning, serves only to keep the folder at the top of the hierarchy whenever alphabetized automatically. This is for quick access to the folders that we use most frequently--especially when they point to files located deeper into the chain. It also helps to keep them always in a consistent location.

Mark misfiled modules as you go, but sort them later. Whenever I come across a module within the main reading layout, that has been inadvertently misfiled, rather than go immediately to the "define module sets" window to correct the issue, I just mark it with an @ symbol in the meantime, to remember to find it and sort it later.

For example, if I discover a commentary module called "Smith - Commentary" misfiled with my dictionaries while I am reading the Bible, I will just change the module title "abbreviation" (in the properties window) to "@ Smith - Commentary" and immediately return to my reading. Perhaps I will find a few more misfiled modules during the week., so I will mark them with the same @ symbol each time. Then, days later, in my free time, I will open the "define module sets" window, search for all modules labeled with "@", and then move each one to its more-appropriate location. Then I re-save the custom set and close the window. Then, when I go back to the main reading layout, rather than try to hunt down each re-located module individually, to remove the "@" symbol, I can rather just type in "@" into the "search module sets" search field (the magnifying-glass located beside the green "define module sets" button), and call up every newly-re-located module at once, by typing @ into the field. As each one opens, I can remove the @ symbol from the "abbreviation" field in the "properties," knowing that it has already been correctly re-filed within the custom module set. Nevertheless, with the name now corrected, I must eventually go back and alphabetize only the sub-node in which this relocated module was stored. (Alphabetizing is not always useful, but when each module is named with the author's last name first, it does serve a good purpose)

Group your modules. Whenever you have many modules in one folder, and you notice that there is some difference regarding which aspect of a given issue they address, it is time to divide them into subfolders for faster identification and access. I had about fifteen modules on the subject of evangelism, for example, but I noticed that about five of them were books written against "lifestyle evangelism", defending traditional "personal evangelism," instead. So, I decided to create a separate sub-folder for those modules alone, entitled "lifestyle evangelism," and I left the other ten behind in the main "evangelism" folder.

Regarding my commentaries, as I have about 100, I have to group them somehow, in order not to read through the entire list, every time I want to choose a commentary. I chose to subdivide them, some, by purpose, and some, by subject matter. My commentary categories, are these: "background commentaries," (e.g., I.V.P.) "book / passage commentaries," (e.g., Isaiah only) "critical commentaries," (e.g., original-language analyses), "Devotional & Homiletical commentaries" (life-applications for devotions or for pulpit preaching), "general expositional commentaries" (the most general and typical type used by most people), and "sectarian commentaries" (e.g., Jehovah's Witness commentaries, Catholic commentaries, etc.).

Notice that my individual-book / passage commentaries are filed in alphabetical order, rather than canonical, just to make it easier to sort them and find them. Anything with "John" in the title goes into the folder of the same name, to avoid having separate folders for commentaries on "The Gospel of John," commentaries on "1 John," "2 John," etc. (This was inspired by the fact that I had some commentaries on all the epistles of John in one.)

Save sets using the same name. After modifying a custom module set, I generally keep the same name that it had before I modified it. In that way all my open windows get updated automatically, whereas, if I changed the name of the set, I would then have to go and manually select that set in each of my seven open windows. Even so, once a month I generally save the set with a new name anyway, as a safety measure against losing data someday, and then I gradually delete the oldest sets, after I have about ten of them backed up. (Of course, I also back up my entire TW folder often, and even more often, the "config.ini" file inside it).

Sort alphabetically before you close the window. The "define module sets" window is not without its shortcomings. Can you imagine, for example, how long it takes me to scroll down to the bottom of my folder layout, when all I want to do is to drag a module from the top of the chain down toward the bottom? The "define module sets" window offers no option for "automatically collapsing selected nodes" nor for "automatically expanding selected nodes," so you will have to do a lot of scrolling, no matter what layout you have. Unfortunately, the "define module sets" window does not sort your modules alphabetically and automatically unless you manually select the option from the right-click context menu. Even so, it only sorts the modules in the selected node, but not the nodes within that node, and certainly not "all nodes" at once. That would be a dream come true. Consequently, in the meantime, any time that you modify a folder node (i.e, by including a new module or renaming a folder node itself), be sure to select the node in question, and alphabetize the modules therein by selecting the option from the right-click context menu. Perhaps in version 12 of the program, in the year 2024, the option will be automatic. Unfortunately, by that time we will probably have all been raptured--except for Costas and Jon--so they will not have much of a user base anyway.

In general, put the folder in the traditional location. This is not to say that the traditional is always better, but only that, in general, it becomes easier to find things when we organize the modules the way any theological library would. Some people would say, "Put the folders that you use the most, at the root level," and, while that may be faster sometimes, I would rather perfect the overall scheme for everyone else, rather than just make things easy for myself. I will eventually transfer my entire TheWord folder to friends and family, with all its content, so I prefer to have things in a traditional spot, and then adapt to that scheme for my own needs. Moreover, you can always use an "asterisk folder" at the top of the chain, as a place to hide your own personal shortcuts to anything that you need to access frequently.

When in doubt, put the folder wherever you would most likely go to look for it. Sometimes one does not know what the traditional location would typically be for a given module (e.g., according to Dewey Decimal system). A paradox that we are always faced with is that there are often two or more ways to categorize any module. Likewise, one could put all his homiletical commentaries in a folder with "commentaries," or else in a "homiletics" folder. One could likewise file a module called "the existence of God" in his "theology proper" folder, but then he could just as easily file it into the "apologetics" folder, all depending on how he intends to use it. The safest way is to put it, not where it should go, but where you would likely go to look for it when you need it. But on that point, we might add the following suggestion from Rubio Terra...

Feel free to scatter multiple links to the same module throughout your folder structure. (By "link" I mean the reference to the module that you move around within the "Define Module Sets" window. As moving these does not move the physical module from one part of your computer to another, but simply uses the nodes and module titles as a point of reference for organizing links to them, I am calling them "links" for lack of a better term.)

Anyway, as Rubio Terra pointed out below, we should remember that we can always have multiple links to the same one module, scattered throughout the custom module set layout; one for each need. You can put your "The Existence of God" module, for example, into your "Theology Proper" folder, but you can copy yet another link to it into your "Apologetics" folder, for when you need it to prove the existence of God to an unbeliever, for example.

Feel free to create multiple "custom module sets." Dr. Dave Thomason points out below, and on his website, that more than one custom set can be created and used, at a time, to keep the bulk down to a minimum and to make searching simpler and faster. Frankly, I have not done that yet, myself, but it seems wise. I don't like having to re-open the "Define module set" window several times during a study session, nor to change the layout either, for that matter, so I try to keep one set and one layout for everything. However, switching between several different sets during any given session may be a more practical approach, in the long run. (Dr. Dave has been doing this longer than I have.)

Abbreviate your folder names. Note that some of my folder names below are abbreviated, for several reasons, but partly so that my tabs will be as short as possible in the main reading layout of the program. However, abbreviating does not necessarily lead to confusion, as the full meaning of the abbreviation can often be implicit by the mere fact that it is a sub-folder of another. The folder for my "background commentaries," for example, is simply entitled "background;" the fact that it is a sub-node of my "commentaries" folder, in itself implies that it contains background commentaries.

While using acronyms would make the tabs even shorter in the main reading layout, I generally avoid using them, as it is not always easy for me to remember what they represented (when I have 1,800+ modules installed), and because the acronyms are not always as as universally understood by others with whom I share my program files, or by others who might like to see my folder arrangement online and emulate my layout. I do make some exceptions. I believe that Costas prefers that module creators use acronyms liberally for the sake of simplifying titles and abbreviations, but I, myself find the practice problematic in my own daily use of the program.

Consider abbreviating module titles to include author, doctrinal point-of-view, and year-of-publication. Not to get too far off the point here, this is not to suggest that you re-name your modules, but only that you modify the "abbreviation" for each module, in the properties window (or by right-clicking the bookview tab for the same, while the module is open in the main reading layout).

I have uploaded a screenshot below of how my commentary modules look from within the main reading layout, when using the folder structure proposed in my first post here. Notice how I abbreviate my module titles, to include the author's last name, followed by an abbreviated title, followed by his doctrinal point of view (if it is known), followed by the year of publication (if it is known). (Of course it is up to the individual module creators to provide this information.)

In this way, I can better choose my commentaries according to the type of passage that I am reading. For example, if I need to understand an eschatological passage, or a passage on the spiritual gifts, I would probably prefer one of the modern commentaries--maybe even a charismatic commentary--as much more scholarship is available on those subjects in newer commentaries than in older ones, and sometimes in charismatic commentaries than in more traditional ones (e.g., Wayne Grudem, Gordon Fee, J. Rodman Williams, Duffield & Van Cleave, et al.), even though I may not necessarily agree completely with the commentator's conclusions in any case. Labeling the modules in this way makes for quick identification from within the main reading layout.

Incidentally, you may notice that Mr. David Cox (one of the master module builders) has started including the doctrinal label in the file name itself for each module (where known). This has made is much easier for my own filing purposes. (See samples here http://www.dcoxlibrary.org/zipped-tw-pa ... brary-twm/) I don't know if he has created the abbreviations this way, also, but what he has done certainy helps with filing the modules on the computer.

By the way, another advantage of including author, title, year in the abbreviation, is that you can right-click and quickly copy it from the corresponding tab, and use it as a sort of fast bibliographical reference to paste into your Bible study notes. Otherwise you would have to go through additional clicks to copy it from the properties window.

Now for the bad news...

Having lengthy title abbreviations containing author, doctrinal point-of-view and year of publication, is not a problem if your modules are within folders, and if you are willing to move the cursor along a series of menus in order to find any given module. However, if you would rather create a separate limited module set--of only commentaries, for example--you may choose to have all of those commentary modules loose, and at the root level, rather than inside any folders. The advantage of arranging them in this way is that they now appear as"tabs" within the main reading layout, on the tab bar, and each module is then accessible with only one click and no further cursor movements. (This is the two ways that eSword generally lays out the tabs, and it is in fact, very handy.)

In this second, convenient arrangement, the longer your title abbreviations, the harder they will be to use, as the more space these titles will take up on your tab bar. If you are blessed to have fifty commentaries installed, for example, you will now have fifty long file names scattered across the tab bar, essentially dominating the entire window and leaving hardly any space for reading the text inside any of those commentaries. It will require lots of scrolling just to read any comment.

Having the lengthy abbreviations as first suggested above, then, can be counter productive when things are at root level, and the goal will then be to reduce those abbreviations to the shortest form possible. Consequently, many users choose to abbreviate the "Matthew Henry Concise Commentary" as simply 'MHCC" and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia as "ISBE". with no regard for doctrinal info, year of publication, and other things, which could just as easily be stored in the module properties somewhere (although it would require extra clicks in order to retrieve that information every time). Making the abbreviation very short requires the user to remember exactly which title each abbreviation represents, of course, but in the course of time, one can adapt.

Remember that these abbreviations will become somewhat-permanent additions to the module, and wherever else you happen to use the modules in other windows or other module sets, the modules will appear with the same abbreviation. Take these things into account up front.

Abbreviate your module titles to use at the root level, if necessary. While the bulk of my suggestions regard how to make an efficitient overall filing structure, we must not forget that other, separate custom module sets can be created and used simultaneously. In other words,, you can name your comprehensive set as "all modules" for example (mine is currently called Jan 2017" as you will see in the screenshot). Then you can go back and create an entirely new second set entitled "Favorite Commentaries," to use separately within an additional open bookview window.

In order to do that, within the "Define Custom Module Set" window, (right pane), I suggest that you first save a back-up copy of your comprehensive set, then re-open it, and call it "Favorite Commentaires" (using this example), whereby a separate set will be created without affecting the first. After that, remove all nodes except the "commentary" node. Then, go through the commentary node and all of its sub-nodes and pick out the commentaries that you have found useful, and drag each one to the root level (as if siblings to the main commentary node). When you are finished, delete the commentary node itself. Now select all the remaining module titles at root level, and sort them alphabetically. Close the window, and select this new set within any bookview window. Now all of your favorite commentaries are just one or two clicks away, but only within that one bookview window, assuming that the other windows are still displaying your previous custom module set (e.g., "all modules") That will be more convenient for Bible reading, but you can use the other windows for researching other subjects, for example.

However, you will notice that the titles for each module may still be too long, to display all of them, and most of them will be out of view without clicking on the spill-over arrow to reveal them. If you go to the green module-set button, select "options," and then "tabs in multiple rows," it will put all of your commentary tabs into view simultaneously. If you have many, the tab bar will be enormous, perhaps even impractical to use. This can be solved by re-naming the "abbreviation" of each module title in the "properties" window for each, to be as short as possible. This is probably why Costas recommends using abbreviations. So, if your "Matthew Henry's Concise Bible Commentary" is re-named "MHCBC" in the "abbreviations" field, it will occupy much less space when displayed with other commentary tabs in the tab bar. The trade-off is that you may possibly forget what the abbreviation stood for, when it was published, what the doctrinal point-of-view was, etc. In fact, I have just shortened my own abbreviations as much as possible, using "CoC" instead of "Church of Christ" in order to identify that doctrinal point of view, where I have it, but I may eventually erase that part, as I become more familiar with which commentary is which.

View your overall structure using the "Filter" field If you type a symbol into the "filter" search field, at the bottom of the "Create custom set" panel--one that is not used in the title of any module, such as $, #, % or something of the like--all your modules will suddenly be hidden from view, but the hierarchical structure will be retained, in an expanded view. In this way you can get a bird's-eye view of your overall scheme, or even take a screenshot to share with others. (In my case I had to take about ten screenshots, scrolling down, little by little, and then piece them together in a photo-editing program like GIMP.). This is also a very LIMITED work-around, in some cases, for moving files from the left panel to the right, without having to scroll very much.

Re-expand all module nodes by closing the "Define custom module set" window, and re-opening it. As you know, there is no way to automatically expand or collapse all nodes here, (although there is in the bookview topic trees), so the more primitive work-around is simply to close the window after saving your work, and then re-opening it. That will expand all the nodes, once again, although you may have to go through and re-collapse many of them, as well, depending on what you were doing before.

Feel free to disagree with my folder structure, and offer suggestions for improvement, but in the meantime, below is my proposal for an efficient all-purpose custom module set.

[Doctordavet]

I have a blog post at my site that goes right along with this topic. It can be accessed here

http://www.doctordavet.com/tw_setbuilding.html

Thanks, EJ, for this nice post.

[ErikJon]

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Thanks Dr. Dave. I thought nobody cared.

I also looked into the Dewey Decimal system, as you did, and the Library of Congress, and read about how they were created, and, as I recall, each system, though very useful for printed books, has its limitations for use in TheWord.

At the root level of the Dewey, for example, "religion" is but one category, whereas 90% of the modules in TheWord will be of a religious nature anyway, almost to the point of precluding the need for the other Dewey categories, from the very start.

According to what I have read, Dewey sometimes creates arbitrary locations just because "space was available in the numbering scheme"; whereas the rest of us would like to have an overall logical scheme arranged topically and perfectly from the start, rather than merely to fit things in wherever there is space, and have to reorganize them later.

After all, most libraries reach a point where the subject matter is specific enough for their needs, and as they have only a limited number of shelves to put them on anyway, the last batch of books ends up on the same long shelf, even though it could theoretically be subdivided into many other subtopics. (e.g., all "Christian Living" books may end up on the same shelf, instead of being subdivided into "marital issues," "prayer," "character," etc. In our case, we do not have such limits, as we can always create another sub-folder to put something in, and since it makes searching faster and easier, it is worth the effort.

Consequently, if we develop this topic to its full, I think that we TW users may end up with a more perfect organizing system than any library has had to date.
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[RubioTerra]

Of course the paradox that I am always faced with when categorizing, is that there are always two or more ways to categorize any module. One could put all his "homiletical commentaries" in a folder with "commentaries," for example, (as I have) or else in a folder with his materials for sermon preparation called "homiletics," or "sermons," etc.

Don't forget you can associate a single module to more than one category. The custom set dialog allows you to add a module more than once to the same set.

[ErikJon]

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Yes, Rubio, that is a good point.

In the layout depicted above, my individual modules are not shown--but rather only the folders--but I certainly do have multiple associations for many of the modules.

By the way, one of my sample screenshot below shows how my folder arrangement looks from the main reading layout. The example given is of my "General expositional commentaries" folder. Notice how I abbreviate my module titles on the modules themselves, to include the author's last name, followed by an abbreviated title, followed by his doctrinal point of view (if it is known), followed by the year of publication (if it is known). (Of course it is up to the individual module creators to provide this information.) My title abbreviation is not done to the folders (nodes), of course, but to the modules themselves, through the properties window witthin the program. The point about labeling my commentaries by doctrine and year of publication, is that I can better choose my commentaries according to the type of passage that I am reading. For example, if I need to understand an eschatological passage, or a passage on the spiritual gifts, I would probably prefer one of the modern commentaries, as more attention has been given to those subjects in recent commentaries than in older ones.

The other screenshot below shows how you can then use that "title abbreviation" to quickly copy and paste bibliographical references into your personal notes, without having to open the properties window.

[ErikJon]

It has been two years since I began this thread, and I have gradually learned better approaches to categorizing and sorting some of the modules. Today I removed my old screenshot from 2014, and uploaded a new one from December 2016, that I have been polishing for these two years (see above).

I am also going to begin organizing all the suggestions into a list of "tips" for organizing modules in general, and I will eventually work them all into the one original post above (as you will see I have begun to do in red type, for now).

As I am by no means the expert, feel free to offer suggestions for perfecting the folder structure, and I will gradually work those suggestions into the main list, giving credit to each contributor by name.

[ErikJon]

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Can you imagine, how long it takes us to scroll down to the bottom of an (expanded) custom module set folder layout (tree), when all we want to do is to drag a module from the top of the chain down toward the bottom? The "define module sets" window currently offers no option for "automatically collapsing selected nodes" nor for "automatically expanding selected nodes," so we have to do a lot of scrolling, no matter what layout we have. The "define module sets" window does not sort our modules alphabetically and automatically; instead, we manually select the option from the right-click context menu, and, even so, it only sorts the modules in the selected node, but not the nodes within that node, and certainly never sorts "all nodes" at once. That would be a dream come true.

Consequently, the entire organizing process would be MUCH easier if TheWord included automatic sorting, expanding and collapsing of nodes. In fact, the functionality is already present in the "topic tree" options of any bookview window, at least for part of this proposal: They are called "collapse tree" and "expand tree", and they sure make things easier for navigation.

Attached is a screenshot of what these ideas would look like if enough users took the time to tell Costas how much they wished he would add these minor improvements.
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[papaskop]

thanks heaps for all the effort. currently new to TW so learning all the great tips and certainly will be implementing some of your ideas.

as you have suggested would be a great idea if the TW software can be enhanced to incorporate some of your suggestions above.

by the way..is it possible to save your great folder structure as a Template and share with the wider group? that would certainly save me the hours of trying to replicate the .jpg?

Thanks
Skop

[ErikJon]

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Hej, Skop. That's a great idea.

I don't know how to transfer ONLY the custom module set, as a template, but I CAN send you my entire "config.ini" file, which I assume has all the preferences, settings, and custom-module layout, inside it. Your color schemes and layout will then appear as mine, as we do not know how to separate the custom-module-set template from the rest of the settings.

We could ask Costas or Jon on this forum, whether there is an easier way to do this, or if there are any potential problems to be anticipated, but, during this time of year, they may possibly take a few days to respond.

If you don't want to wait for their instructions, I will propose to you my idea regarding how to install it, and you can try that. If it does not work, I can tell you here how to restore whatever you had before. Otherwise, you can wait until they read this post and confirm my instructions first, before proceeding.

If you are truly "just getting started," as you say, then I assume that you have only about fifty modules installed, or less. The few changes in your layout that you may experience, after installing my layout, will not be of much consequence to you. You will have the same skin and window positions as I have, at first, but you can change all of that as you like, and retain only the custom module set.

After you download it from this post, I would suggest that you use it this way:
1. Close TheWord temporarily.
2. On your desktop create a folder called "my original config.ini file"
3. Open your "TheWord" folder
4. Find file called "config.ini" inside it.
5. Move it to the other folder on your desktop, called "my original config.ini file". This will be your back-up copy.
6. Unzip my config.ini file.
7. Put the unzipped config.ini in your TheWord folder.
8. Start the program as you normally would.
9. If you receive any messages that tell you that certain of my modules (described in the config.ini file) are missing from your computer, that should be obvious. Just close those message windows and continue.
10. Open the "Define module sets" window and see if my layout is there, instead of your old one.

Of course, my modules, themselves will not be inside those folders, as you will have only the layout as a template. All of your own modules will still be installed, but not included anywhere in the new custom-module layout. You will have to begin dragging modules from the left pane ("available modules") to the right one, to put them wherever you intended, inside the new folder layout. You can also drag additional copies to other parts of the layout, of course.

If for any reason my instructions above do not work correctly, I assume that you can restore your old layout by simply:

1. Closing the program
2. Deleting that new config.ini folder inside your "TheWord" folder
3. Dragging a copy of your original back-up config.ini file (but not the folder), back to the "TheWord" folder.
4. Starting the program again.

The layout should look exactly as it did before you made any changes.

I recommend saving a back-up copy of your current config.ini file, every month, because you will eventually have many hours of work involved in your settings, and if they become corrupted, you will be sorry later. I use a portable installation of the whole program, and I back up the entire folder, about once a month, to an external disk.

I hope this works for you.

Here is the file, attached below.

[JG]

Topic moved from this link.
viewtopic.php?p=37078#p37078



I have tried this and it worked for me.

Unzip the Template.zip file and extract the Template.txt or TemplateBlank.txt file to your desktop or documents folder.

Open theWord and go to Help menu -> About
In the window that opens, select the "File locations" tab.
Now click the ... icon for the "Personal files" folder, and a window will open.
Close down theWord.
Locate the config.ini file and make a copy of it renamed. (Usually easiest to drag n drop the file in the same folder while holding down the Ctrl key)
Open the config.in file with Notepad or Notepad++
Open the Template.txt or TemplateBlank.txt and copy all the content and paste it to the bottom of the config.ini
Save the config.ini file and close the Notepad programs.

Start theWord.
Now you should see a new menu item on the Module Sets called "Template" or "TemplateBlank", which you should select.
You are ready to use Define Sets, and save it as another name to suit yourself.

Note := The difference between the Template.txt and TemplateBlank.txt is that the Template.txt contains data for installed modules on ErikJon's installation. So if you happen to have the some modules installed yourself, they will appear in the module set where he set them. For the TemplateBlank.txt it is just the tree structure that is in the file, so any modules you have will have to be assigned to the tree as you like them.

Template.zip

(69.27 KiB) Downloaded 411 times

Is this simple enough?

[papaskop]

Thanks Erik
Just implemented your technique - seems to work fine with all the folder structure installed. Obviously b'cos the config file is different to mine the layout and other settings changed automagically - nothing that we can't fix.

Something interesting though - should you have the same modules in present in your "Book" folder, it automagically connects to the appropriate subfolder (screen dump attached fyi).

@JG only saw your post now...will test that one too later

Thanks all
Skop

[ErikJon]

Wow! I did not know that the modules would automatically find their spot in the new custom set. That will save lots of time, then. Credit for that one goes to Costas.

I was planning to re-vamp the folder structure, now and then, and to upload the new layouts occasionally. They will not always agree perfectly with Jon's nice template, but the differences will be minimal, and with automatic synchronization as Skop mentioned, it should be a breeze to modify it as desired.

Thanks, Jon, for all your trouble. I assumed that you were out ringing in the new year somewhere.

For future users: I assume that Jon's method described above will work better than mine, in that it will add the custom set layout without changing all of the other user settings to match the ones that I already had in my config.ini file. If you are just beginning to use the program, that may not be an issue to you.

[ErikJon]

This whole thread should have been begun in the "Tips" section of the forum, rather than in "comments and suggestions." Sorry about that. If we move it, perhaps any links that point to this thread will no longer be valid?

[Jeff]

This whole thread should have been begun in the "Tips" section of the forum, rather than in "comments and suggestions." Sorry about that. If we move it, perhaps any links that point to this thread will no longer be valid?

I think Jon's already handled that: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7175

[ErikJon]

Oh, yes. Thanks. I didn't see that.