Remove Dark Patterns: resetting user preferences
Blender has a dark pattern, that resets user preferences with every major version update.
I see no reason to have this feature at all let alone let it be a default.
I have lost countless hours of work because of that and it is a huge point of friction. When I made a small survey in my social circle, everybody disliked that feature, and some even asked what software project would do such a thing so they can make sure to avoid it.
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It seems like this should be less about stopping blender from resetting the preferences and more about making it load the preferences from the last version automatically instead of the user having to do it manually from the splash screen. I could get behind that, at least as an option that some people could disable if they want.
That sounds reasonable.
Though, I guess in this case, would it make sense to implement a more "in your face" way to tell the user when something goes wrong when updating to a new version?
At least a warning of addons that failed to enable.
Because for now, it's kind of possible to know where things go wrong when you are the one consciously asking port over the preferences. But it is easy to miss nonetheless and will be even less noticeable if updating is done automatically, especially for new users.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Do you think it would be a duplicate of this proposal or of blender.community/c/rightclickselect/3644/ to make a new proposal for this? Technically the linked proposal isn't for automatically loading preferences, but it is mentioned at the end.
Dark patterns are like those annoying installers that try to trick you to install a searchbar, or those cookie setting popups on websites that make it hard for you to opt out.
Bit of a stretch to call this a dark pattern. It is just prompting you once when installing if you want to keep the user preferences or start with fresh preferences.
You do not reset preferences, previous preferences settings file is still there in previous major version folder, just 1 drag'n'drop away.
As mentioned before, I don't consider these kinds of workarounds to be relevant for discussions around UX.
You can solve all the problems with blender by editing some files somewhere, but that shouldn't be required to do basic stuff like keeping your preferences without having to watch out each time blender gets updated (witch remind you: on any modern Operating System should happen automatically.)
Technically, Blender doesn't "reset" user preferences when you update, nor does it happen at every minor update. It's just that the preferences are stored in an X.Y version folder, and thus you get a clean Blender any time you update to a new major version:
You can go there and copy any kind of user preference and addons from and to any version.
Plus, when you open a new major version for the first time, the splashscreen asks you if you want to import your preferences from the latest version - if it detects it.
The only missing feature IMHO is to have a way to import settings from older versions at any time, not just the first boot and not just from the latest previous installation.
There are advantages to not using the same preference folders all the time, mainly :
sorry, tangled up words.
I hope you understand, why I am aware of these kinds of solutions, but tend to ignore them when it comes to evaluating features of a software.
That is why I'm referring to this as a dark pattern. If you aren't aware what artwork is current, the splash sreens really aren't distinguishable at a glance.
This way users get tricked into discarding their preferences every time there is a new version. They have the option to opt out, but they must be on their toes and concentrated with every splash screen.
... none of with go away, when you don't just automatically reset preferences all the time.
Also Pablo mentioned in the stream last week that Blender 3.6 LTS will most likely support custom paths for these kinds of settings, Plugins etc. so that you will not have to reimport your settings any more. Maybe wait and check in the upcoming builds for 3.6 if your functionality is alredy there.
It depends on how it is implemented. If it is like how the current paths settings works (I.E. for scripts), it's still something that is technically a preference not carried through a new major version.
Hence, proposing solutions. Because there is a reasonable reason why the current system exists, and there are ways to make the UX better while keeping the advantages of the existing system.
I proposed tools to easily import old preferences at any time. @matt6 proposed to automatically copy the preferences by default as an option.