Hello all, hello Michael.
This is Rudy.
Today I downlaoded the February Beta version because the inset tool is just great. So far with MOI has been a great experience and I did many projects that turned out to be great. Overall, I am ready for v2. I cannot live now without this great software, so Thank you.

So, everthing is OK.
Tonight I have downloaded the new Beta on a flash drive, as I am waiting for a new laptop. Then, Uninstalled the flash drive.

Then I have saved as STL file a project builted with the new beta on my desktop as usual (by the way, the saving in STL file was faster than usual...I mean a bit faster than I would have saved it in MOI v1).
I am not sure when I saw it (after my saving as STL file...I guess....I did closed the MOI file after that),
but when I wanted to open directly any MOI file it could not open (it says "it is not a valid WIN32 application).
I restarted the computer, and my MOI files changed apperance to Rhino file. So, I right-click on the mouse, "open with", and there is the usual list of programs...the MOI icon is actually the "Moment of Inspiration set up", there is Rhino icon, other programs, and MOI v1 and MOI v2 Beta are like a computer screen...(see jpg attached)

How can I restore my 3dm files to be open directly with MOI?

I know Michael is very Busy....if somebody can give me a hint....
Thank you

Hi Rudy, yup the v2 mesh creation (like for saving to an STL file) is much, much faster than v1 - among other optimizations it also makes use of multiple CPU cores now, which all adds up to about 25 times faster mesh generation over v1 on a quad core computer.


So when you say you put the new beta on a flash drive, do you mean that you just put the installer on the flash drive, or do you mean that when you ran the installer, you picked the flash drive as the main installation target folder?

You probably shouldn't use a flash drive that will get disconnected later as the main installation folder - you can copy MoI to a flash drive and run it from there if you want, but you probably should do that by installing it to a regular place on your hard drive first (like c:\Program Files) so that you have a regular installation and then copy the installation folder to the flash drive which you will be removing later, if you want to bring MoI with you to other computers on that flash drive.


But anyway, your problem should be fixable by using the "Choose program..." option that is at the bottom of the menu that you showed in your own screenshot:



That will then open up another dialog box that looks like this:




Set the checkbox that says "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file", and push the "Browse..." button near the bottom there - that will open up a file dialog and you will need to find the MoI.exe program wherever you installed it and pick it with this dialog box.

Once you have done that, that should tell the Windows shell that you want it to open files with the .3DM file extension with that particular program.


This file association is set up for you automatically by the installer, but that will probably get messed up if you install to some location that then goes away like a flash drive, that sounds like what happened to you.


But with the above steps you can tell the Windows shell to use whatever specific program you want for opening files with a certain file extension.


- Michael

Hi Rudy, also this mechanism of how Windows figures out which program to launch when you double click on a certain kind of a file in the Windows Explorer shell is often times called "File associations", if you want to try to find some more information about it.

Like for instance here are a couple of articles which may help:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307859

http://www.ehow.com/how_2052279_change-file-type-associations-windows.html

- Michael

But it may possibly confuse Windows if you have a file association targeting a program that is often not accessible, like on a USB drive that you are removing all the time.

If you want to open files by double-clicking on them in the Windows Explorer, you'll probably want to have MoI installed to your hard drive under c:\Program Files rather than on something that is being removed often.


Another way you can open files from Windows Explorer without having a file association set up is to use Drag and Drop - that's where you launch MoI first and instead of double-clicking or using "Open with" you instead drag the file from the Windows Explorer and let it go on top of the MoI window.


- Michael

Hello Michael,
I have fixed it.
Actually, it is not the flash drive the problem (to me, if I may...). I actually istalled the new Beta last night on my hard drive, and tonight excited about the new laptop, I downloaded on the flash drive.

I have noticed again a while back when I have installed another Beta of v2, back in september.
When I install the new Beta, somehow it override the MOI v1...meaning, whenever I open a 3dm file, it opens in the new beta.
Anyway...not sure what I want to say.....
I uninstall the new Beta Feb21, and installed it again.
Then (see jpg) I saw what I needed to see (circled in red).
then I've choosen the MOI application, check "alyas open with this program" and back to reality again.
Anyway, now it is OK.
Before uninstalling, I did chose program (as you said in your answer), it opened in C//program files,, when I go to MOI v1 and even MOI v2 Beta, go inside the folder, and click the icon, could not trasport the MOI 3d modeling/CAD application icon as list of programs....

anyway, now it is OK.
when it is it the official V2 release?

Thank you Michaeld as usual.
Really I love MOI!

Best regards,
Rudy

Hi Rudy,

> When I install the new Beta, somehow it override the
> MOI v1...meaning, whenever I open a 3dm file, it opens
> in the new beta.

Yeah, that's kind of hard to avoid with Windows file associations - only 1 program can be associated with a particular file extension as the default program to open it when double-clicking on the file, and when you install the new beta, it will set itself to be the current version to open with it.

But you can adjust the file association to whatever you need by using that dialog box that I showed earlier.


> when it is it the official V2 release?

Well, I'm working on updating the documentation, that's the only part that I have left to finish before being able to do the final release...

- Michael

>>>>Well, I'm working on updating the documentation, that's the only part that I have left to finish before being able to do the final release...>>>>>>>

Well, let's see....

A crown of clubs that is organized with named objects, very colorful with surface reporting qualities, has been rebuilt, Has had insecting appied at various points, is providing realtime object properties feedback, with a sillouette applied, and has been dynamically tolerated, and locked from further modifications, and placed and oriented precisley, and scaled and rotated "on the fly", with gem like objects flowing all over it, and some bounds data reflected with actual geometry, with a pinpointed bounds center, and designed with conic quality (Using an RHO value of course), utilizing a mitered base, drawn by specific curve length, Incrementally saved after aligning a bitmap image and scaling it perfectly in the viewport....................

I think I have you covered brother! No worries :o

Hi Burr, that's the "Cliff Notes" (or I guess Burr Notes) condensed version... ;)

But yeah it's been about 2 years worth of new development since v1 so there's definitely a lot of new stuff in there for v2!

V1 seems pretty clunky now, especially right off the bat of using v1 the lighting feels really harsh now and it is tough to work without the edit frame.

- Michael

Great summary Burr!

It's funny, Monday I've worked on a tablet that had only V1 installed an had no access to my installer.
And it wasn't so bad, in fact much better than anticipated..

The core modeling features and interface was already incredibly efficient!


Marc