Issues with Category Color, Closing, and Dropbox Question

[chris82]

Recently downloaded VueMinder trial (9th day) and so far, I’m loving it. I’ve run into a couple of problems in the last few days.

The issue that bothers me the most just happened. I opened VueMinder this evening and all of my category colors have disappeared. I’m not sure what happened, but when I initially opened the calendar an error appeared. I’m sorry but I didn’t read the error message very carefully…something about .NET blah, blah, blah. I closed VueMinder then restarted. No error appeared, but neither did my category colors. I restarted my computer (often fixes lots of things), but still no category colors.

Second issue: When I close VueMinder it usually goes to my taskbar notification area (I know it’s not supposed to close), but lately it’s started hanging out with my pinned programs in the taskbar (it’s not a pinned program). It looks like an application that’s simply been minimized. If I right click the icon and select close, it again gives me the message about minimizing to the task tray and does not close.

VM-TaskBar.jpg (10.8 KiB) Viewed 5339 times

It will close if I right click the icon in the notification area and select exit.

VM-NotificationArea.jpg (7.65 KiB) Viewed 5339 times

Occasionally, it just hangs out down near my start button.

VM-window.jpg (10.42 KiB) Viewed 5339 times

I also have a question about sharing. If I use VueMinder on my desktop and my laptop can I sync the calendars using Dropbox? Would it work if I published and subscribed from both computers, or would that just make a big mess?

[VueSoft]

Hi Chris, welcome to the forums.

I opened VueMinder this evening and all of my category colors have disappeared. I’m not sure what happened, but when I initially opened the calendar an error appeared.

If you see this message again, could you send the details to support@vueminder.com? This will help me track down the problem.

There are a couple things you can do to recover the category colors, if this happens again. The first would be to configure automatic data backups, via the "Backup Data" command on the File menu. Category colors will be included with the backup. If you notice the colors are missing, use the "Restore Data" command to get them back. Note, this might cause the most recent events to be lost, if they were created after the backup was generated.

Another option would be to manually make a backup copy the file named "categories.xml", located in the VueMinder private data folder. The folder location is indicated on the Program Options window. If you get an error and category colors are lost, fully exit VueMinder and then replace the categories.xml file with your backup copy. When you restart VueMinder, you'll see all your previous categories and colors are recovered.

Second issue: When I close VueMinder it usually goes to my taskbar notification area (I know it’s not supposed to close), but lately it’s started hanging out with my pinned programs in the taskbar.

This sounds like the Program Option "Always show taskbar icon, even when minimized" might have been enabled. Try unchecking that option to see if that fixes it.

I also have a question about sharing. If I use VueMinder on my desktop and my laptop can I sync the calendars using Dropbox? Would it work if I published and subscribed from both computers, or would that just make a big mess?

Dropbox won't work. However, if you only run VueMinder on one computer at a time, you could use the Portable version. That version runs from a USB stick. All data is also located on the USB stick, so you can take it back and forth between your desktop and laptop. This is the simplest approach and allows ALL data to be accessible on both computers. If you only need to share event data, or if you plan on having both computers running at the same time, you could use either the local calendar sharing feature, or the ICS publish/subscribe approach. These links explain both approaches in more detail:
LAN Sharing
ICS Publish + Subscribe

I hope that helps. Thank you for trying VueMinder Calendar Pro, and please let me know if you have any other questions.

[chris82]

Dan,
Thank you for such a quick response. I've been using the calendar all day with no further issues. I'm sorry that I didn't pay attention to the error message. I'm usually pretty good about that, but I was in a rush and just assumed a quick restart would solve the problem. If it happens again, I'll be sure to copy the error message.

I did have a backup available, but I had spent the day before adding a ton of stuff and the backup was done prior to that. I didn't want to lose all of my knew info so I just created the category colors again. I have since made a backup of categories.xml (thanks for the tip). I've also set automatic backups to run more frequently.

You were correct that "Always show taskbar icon, even when minimized" had been enabled. My bad.

Again, thanks for the quick response. So far I really love this application. It's flexible enough for my complicated schedule, but easy enough that I don't get bogged down just trying to add new events. I have enough to do without having to fiddle with a calendar all day. Thanks for such a wonderful product.

Chris