Copy preferences to another Mac?

I am about to install Rhino OSX on my MacBook. I have used it on the iMac for quite some time now, and over time developed some aliases that I like to work with, and a personalized popup menu. And if my memory serves me right I also customized the toolbar a bit.

Is there an easy way to copy these preferences to my MacBook?

Hi Max- for Aliases you can do this - in Preferences > Aliases > gear button at the bottom, there are options to export and import aliases.

-Pascal

All your Rhino preferences are saved in a file that you can copy between Macs. The file is here:

  1. In the Finder, hold down the Option key and select Go > Library in the Finder menu.

  2. Select the Preferences folder.

  3. Copy the file named com.mcneel.rhinoceros.plist.

  4. Place in the same location on the other Mac.

hey @marlin,

where do you keep the keyboard shortcuts at?

i’d like to sync them to all computers via dropbox and symbolic links…
thanks

Keyboard shortcuts and all your other customizations are in the same com.mcneel.rhinoceros.plist file.

ah… ok. i see them now… there’s a lot in there to wade through… (searched the .plist for some of the commands/aliases i’ve assigned and found them that way.)

i only have one computer with me right now so i can’t experiment til friday but i sort of suspect i’ll run into some problems with window sizes etc when trying to sync computers with differing displays dimensions? … i’ll see how it goes though.

dunno, i have another app which i sync shortcuts via dropbox with and it’s a pretty good setup-- change a setting on one computer and it goes to all of them automatically… it’ll be nice if this works with the whole .plist because aliases and i suspect display settings and the like will come along with it.

Don’t do this.

This is a Really Bad Idea ™. The com.mcneel.rhinoceros.plist file belongs to the application and to OS X and is being read and written all the time while an application is running. If you link multiple com.mcneel.rhinoceros.plist files together and ever accidentally have two copies of Rhino running at the same time, you will very likely scramble the file contents and have to recreate all your customizations from scratch.

Even if you never have two copies of Rhino running on different machines simultaneously, Dropbox may decide to update the file while some copy of Rhino is running with equally disastrous results.

lol.

i read this earlier and wondered why it wasn’t a problem with the other application i do it with then realized it’s because my license with that app only allows one computer at a time to run it… so i can’t have two computers online at the same time running it…

but i see what you’re saying and yes, it’s very likely i’ll have two rhinos launched at the same time…

it might be nice if down the road we had a way to sync shortcuts (and maybe other user definable options)… even if it’s via exporting then importing to another computer etc.

You can manually copy the com.mcneel.rhinoceros.plist between computers to sync preferences. Make sure that you have Rhino closed on both computers when you do it. And also realize that doing this will totally replace all preferences on the destination computer.

Just don’t let Dropbox or some other automated process do it for you. That will scramble bits.

cool. thanks… i’ll be able to try it out tomorrow.

i’ll also make sure to keep a copy of my current .plist_s incase something goes awry.