The general workflow for button assignments is:
In the pull-down lists, spell lines will be sorted alphabetically. There's a blank entry at the top that when assigned to a button makes the button do nothing. By default, all buttons start out with that blank entry assigned to them until you change the assignment. Note that after editing spell lines, button assignments will be updated to reflect any deleted spell lines. Buttons assigned to a spell line that's been deleted will be assigned the blank entry.
The state of button assignments reflected in the window is only the current state. There's a separate persistent state corresponding to the saved state on disk. The persistent state is only updated to reflect the current state when you use the Save button, when you generate a UI code file, or when you exit the program. You can use the Revert button to revert the state of button assignments back to the last saved state. That gives you some measure of control over things and gives you the option to undo mistakes to a point.
On the File menu, the New and Open selections open a new data file or an existing one. Both selections are capable of handling both new files (that currently don't exist on disk) and existing files. Both will start with a blank slate when asked to create/open a file that doesn't currently exist. They differ when you select a file that already exists. New will start with a blank slate, no spell lines or button assignments present, while Open will read the existing file. Once you've opened a file, the program will return to it the next time it's run. The status bar at the bottom of the screen displays the name of the currently open file.
The File menu Save and Save As... selections save the current data to disk. Save saves the data to the currently-open file, while Save As... allows you to select the name of the file to save the data to. Save As... also changes the the currently-open file, and you'll return to this file the next time the program is run.
The File menu Import and Export selections import and export the button assignments from and to a comma-separated values (CSV) file. The form of the lines in the file is:
class,button number,spell lineWhen importing, the button assignments replace the current assignments for any class mentioned in the imported file. Any buttons for those classes that are not assigned a spell line in the imported file will be changed to unassigned. Any existing assignments for any classes not mentioned in the file will be left unchanged. When exporting, unassigned buttons will not appear in the exported file.
The File menu Import Spell Lines and Export Spell Lines selections import spell lines from and export them to a CSV file format. The form of the lines in the file is:
class,spell line,tooltip text,level,spell ID,spell nameThe class name, spell line, level and either the spell ID or spell name must be filled in. The level must be a non-negative number, and the spell ID must either be omitted or be a non-zero number. If only one of the spell ID and spell name are filled in, an attempt will be made to fill in the missing value from the map of spell IDs and names. You can import spell IDs from the Edit Spell Lines screen. Importing spell lines modifies the persistent state, so the Revert button won't undo an import.
Class names of * and + (star and plus sign) are special when importing spell lines. They indicate spell lines that apply to all classes. They're applied after the import is finished, and will be added to any class that doesn't have that spell line already. The difference is that + indicates the spell line should not disturb an existing line, while * indicates any existing line should be replaced by the imported one. Note that the export process won't use these special classes, it includes all spell lines explicitly within each class.
The File menu Import Spell IDs and Export Spell IDs selections import and export spell names and IDs to a CSV file format. The form of the lines in the file is:
spell ID,spell nameOnce the import is done, spell lines are checked to attempt to populate any missing spell names and/or IDs based on the spell ID data.
The Tools menu contains some utility functions. The Clear Data selection clears the contents of the current file, removing all spell IDs, spell lines and button assignments and giving you a blank slate. It doesn't change the name of the currently open file, so saving at this point will wipe the previous contents of that file out. The Reset to Defaults selection reverts the program's settings to the default values after installation. This resets the initial class, storage filename and the import/export and UI file generation folders. If the default storage file exists it's contents will be read in, otherwise a blank configuration will be created. This would primarily be useful if you've saved your configuration into a non-default location and have forgotten how to locate the default file again.
The Tools menu Merge New Spells selection is most commonly used when the level cap increases and upgraded spells are added to existing spell lines. It uses the same CSV file format as is used for importing and exporting spell lines, but where the import spell lines function replaces existing spell lines with their new information and spell list, the merge function adds new spells to spell lines that already exist. The tooltip text is ignored, and if the spell name is already in that line's spell list that line of the CSV file is ignored entirely. If a spell line doesn't already exist a new blank one is added and the new spell merged into it.
If you want to save a configuration off to send to someone else, there are two options: the XML storage file, or importable CSV files. Sending the XML storage file would be the best way if you wanted them to be able to read in your complete configuration verbatim and work from that. Importable CSV files would be the best way to send a configuration, or part of a configuration, that they could add to their existing work. For instance, if you've created spell lines beyond Profit's defaults, you can export your spell lines to a CSV file and send that. When the recipient imports your spell lines they'll be merged with their existing lines and the spell ID database updated with any spells you've added (if you filled spell ID information in). If you've filled in spell ID information then the spell line CSV file is the only thing you'd normally need to send, since it contains the spell IDs and they'll automatically be added at the other end as the spell lines are imported. If you wanted to send button assignments for just certain classes, as opposed to all assignments, you could export your assignments to a CSV file, edit it down to just the classes in question, and send that. You'd normally also want to send the spell line CSV file too, so they had the spell line information corresponding to your button assignments.
The import and export spell IDs functions aren't used much. The import function's mostly there as a way for me to get new spell ID information in when the level cap increases and upgraded spells are added. The export function's there mostly for backups and because it was easy to implement, but can be useful when upgrading from earlier versions that didn't include spell IDs.