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Restore

Restore allows you to read data and program settings from a backup archive file and restore them for use by Deep-Sky Planner. This is a convenient way to restore data from offline storage, or to synchronize data between computers. You can select which settings and data are restored to the system from the file by checking data items.

Backup archives are stored in zip files (extension .zip.) You should select a zipped backup archive when the Restore from File dialog box is displayed. The folder defaults to the last folder used for backup, usually the Documents folder for your installation. You can change the folder to any folder you wish, including removable storage such as a USB flash drive or OneDrive cloud storage. If you select a file that does not contain a valid backup archive, the error message 'Error reading the zip file' or 'Unrecognized backup file' is displayed and the process is terminated.

Once the backup archive is opened, the Restore dialog box is shown. A checkbox is displayed for each backed up item that is present in the archive file. If an item is disabled (grayed and can't check), then the selected backup archive does not contain that item. Check each item that you want to restore from the backup archive file for use by Deep-Sky Planner.

The Restore dialog box may show information for the product that produced the archive file, such as Produced by Deep-Sky Planner 9.x.x.x

Controlling Restoration of Data

All checks all data items. This results in restoration of all data and settings in the file.

None unchecks all data items. This is useful if you want to restore selected items.

Preferences includes

▪Date and time formats

▪12 or 24 hour times

▪Universal or local times

▪Latitude and longitude formats

▪RA and Declination formats

▪Altitude and Azimuth formats

▪Azimuth referred to north or south

▪Metric or English weather units

▪New Document defaults

▪Printed atlas support

▪Print orientation & fit-to-page scaling

▪Backup frequency

▪Classis or verbose catalog lists in deep-sky & star documents

▪DSS default server settings

▪Software update frequency

▪Show Hints on or off

▪Show Import/Export Status on or off

▪Print Saver on or off

▪Show Equipment Bar on or off

▪Favorite App Style

▪Favorite Star Chart Program

▪Favorite DSCs

▪Favorite Weather Device

▪Favorite Sky Quality Meter

▪Favorite Equipment / Observer

▪Favorite Location

▪Favorite Observing Project

▪Favorite NNTP Time Service

History

▪Restores all report layouts. Layout includes column ordering, column hiding, column width.

▪Restores URLs used to obtain orbital elements, NTTP time service synchronization, and web page resources for the Observation Browser.

▪Restores settings for Daily and Yearly Altitude graphs in document viewers.

▪Restores main window tool bar settings.

Stylesheets

▪Restores stylesheets used for reports and XML import/export lists. Stylesheets include font and color settings.

Transforms

▪Restores transform files used for XML import/export. Transforms define the rules used for converting from one XML file format to another.

Star Chart Programs

▪Restores settings for each star chart program (but not the favorite star chart program)

Digital Setting Circles

▪Restores settings for each Digital Setting Circle device. Favorite digital setting circle device is included with Preferences.

Weather Devices

▪Restoressettings for each weather device or service. Favorite weather device is included with Preferences.

Sky Quality Meters

▪Restores settings for each Sky Quality Meter. Favorite SQM is included with Preferences.

Sky Conditions

▪Restores Darkness Conditions, Transparency Conditions and Seeing Conditions as shown to the Equipment/Conditions Bar.

Locations

▪Restores all locations in the file to the database. Duplicates are ignored. Favorite location is included with Preferences.

Equipment/Observers

▪Restores all equipment. This includes barlows, eyepieces, filters, cameras and instruments.

▪Restores all observers.

▪Restores the current equipment bundle as shown on the Equipment/Conditions Bar.

Observations

▪Restores all observations, equipment and locations in the file to the database. Duplicates are ignored.
Note: this operation can be lengthy and it does NOT honor the Stop button at all times.

DSS Images

▪Restores all DSS images files that are in JPEG format. Note that this is a change from previous version which used GIF format files.
*** DSS images in GIF format will NOT be restored is displayed iIf the archive contains any image files in GIF format. If you wish to convert GIF files from previous versions of Deep-Sky Planner to JPEG files for version 9, please see the Image Converter utility on the Knightware website.

The operation copies image files into the destination folder. Duplicate images are overwritten; pre-existing images are not removed. An estimate of the number of files and the uncompressed storage requirement is shown beneath this checkbox.

Copy Status

Copy Status places a copy of all text in the status window on the Windows clipboard. This is useful if you want to paste the status text in Notepad (for example) for review.

Restore

Restore starts the restore operation. Checkboxes on the dialog box are disabled while the operation is in progress. The status pane in the lower part of the dialog box shows the progress of the restore operation. You cannot edit the text in the status window, but you can copy and paste the text to the Windows clipboard for use elsewhere in Windows. Data items that are already in the database are not restored. For example, if the status pane shows 0 barlows restored, that means that all the barlows in the backup file are already in the database so no barlows were actually restored.

Stop is available once the restore process begins. It terminates the process without closing the Restore dialog box - you can start over if you wish.

Close closes the dialog box.

Help opens this topic.

Sky Quality Meter is a product of Unihedron, Inc.