Move FreeCAD customization to a different computer

[tbratten]

OS: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (ubuntu:GNOME/ubuntu)
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.19.22366 (Git) AppImage
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: 34c11fcc63efa2fc72cbc74c75c76e9f19d5c84c
Python version: 3.8.5
Qt version: 5.12.9
Coin version: 4.0.0
OCC version: 7.4.0
Locale: English/United States (en_US)

I got a new PC. Above is the FC info on the new PC. My old PC is using the same version of FC, but using Ubuntu 18.04. On my original PC, I have hot keys set up, macros, preference settings, customizations, etc. I'd like to know if there is a way to move my FreeCAD customization to another computer without having to start all over again.

Perhaps there are directories (e.g. ~/.FreeCAD and maybe others) that can be copied to the new PC?

[sgrogan]

Perhaps there are directories (e.g. ~/.FreeCAD and maybe others) that can be copied to the new PC?

This is what I would try. You may have to re-set some paths in the user.cfg file.
If for some reason this doesn't work, you can delete the user.cfg and sys.cfg files and re-start FreeCAD new ones will be created.
Please post your results. There has been a lot of discussion lately about portable configurations.

[jmaustpc]

OS: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (ubuntu:GNOME/ubuntu)

Linux the default location for all your FreeCAD settings, etc. is the hidden directory ".FreeCAD" in your user Home directory.

So if your user name is username, then the full directory path would be /home/username/.FreeCAD By default the file browser in Ubuntu opens to your user's home directory and hidden directories are hidden. I have KDE so its slightly different (and heaps better ), but I have default Ubuntu on other systems.

This is what is inside the FreeCAD hidden directory

Screenshot_20200912_231833.png (24.89 KiB) Viewed 721 times

You can either copy the contents into the same directory on the other system or copy the entire ".FreeCAD" directory. Hidden directories in Linux start with a dot in their name "." .

Jim

[tbratten]

I was pretty successful in transferring the old customization to the new PC. Here’s what I did.

PC1 = original PC with FreeCAD (FC) (Version: 0.19.22366 (Git) AppImage) installed on Ubuntu 18.04
PC2 = new PC with FC (Version: 0.19.22366 (Git) AppImage) installed on Ubuntu 20.04
My user name on both PCs is “tim” so my home directory is /home/tim. (In Linux, this is also referred to as “~”.)

On PC2, download the FC AppImage and run. Exit FC.
Rename /home/tim/.FreeCAD to .FreeCAD.orig
Copy /home/tim/.FreeCAD from PC1 to PC2
Make a backup copy of /home/tim/.FreeCAD/user.cfg
Edit /home/tim/.FreeCAD/user.cfg and review.
I found that I had downloaded icons and used them for Macros. This was defined in the following line:
<FCText Name="CustomPath0">/home/tim/Documents/FreeCAD/icons</FCText>
So, I copied /home/tim/Documents/FreeCAD/icons from the PC1 location to the PC2 location.
Started up FC.
It looks like everything was pretty much preserved. The only thing was the location of the toolbars were not in the same location as on PC1. I simply had to drag them to the location that I preferred. Perhaps toolbar locations are stored somewhere else; I couldn’t find out where those are kept.

All in all, not too bad!