Hamburger Menu disappears permanently from "Quick Access Tool" once it is sent to "Commands". How do I recover it?

[ecbritz]

I lost the "Hamburger Menu" while setting up the Quick Access Tool in Textmaker 2018. I tried to move the Hamburger Menu Icon between the Quick Access Tool and the Commands in order to re-position it. This re-positioning did not work. The Hamburger disappeared altogether.

In order to get it back, I first did a Repair installation of Softmaker 2018, then a complete uninstallation and reinstallation of the program. With both operations, no luck. No Hamburger Menu to be seen.

I noticed that after the supposedly "clean" (complete) uninstallation and re-installation, my Quick Access Tool settings were still in place. In other words, Softmaker was not fully uninstalled, even after using RevoUninstaller Pro.

What I am now considering, is going to the following subfolder: C:\Users\<My username>\AppData\Roaming\Softmaker\. There I am planning to delete the Softmaker subfolder. This is the only remnant of Softmaker left on my computer after using RevoUninstaller Pro, as far as I can see. Theoretically, I should then get a completely clean re-installation of Softmaker, with the Hamburger Menu back.

Is this solution recommended? I would appreciate advice before I actually take the step.

[Jossi]

Did you have a look at C:\Users\<My username>\MyDocuments\Softmaker\? By default, this folder should contain a subfolder "Settings" with all individual settings. If you rename this subfolder and restart the program, SoftMaker Office should return to its default settings and it shouldn't even be necessary to re-install the program.

[ecbritz]

Do you mean I should rename the subfolder "Settings" to something like "Settings-1"? Or should I rename one of the files inside the subfolder"Settings"? If I use the route C:\Users\<My username>\AppData\Roaming\Softmaker\ I will certainly lose all settings, dictionaries added etc. But I can recover from that.

[Jossi]

If I remember correctly, menu settings are stored in the file "tmw18tools.dat". As a first try, you could move this file out of the "Settings" folder.
If this doesn't work, a systematic proceeding would be: first to move all content out of "Settings" and then replace the files one by one again to find out which one causes the issue.

[ecbritz]

Update: I did what you said, Jossi, but it did not really solve the problem. So I tried a radical un-installation, including the deletion of the Softmaker subfolder at C:\Users\<My username>\AppData\Roaming\Softmaker\ as well as the Softmaker subfolder at C:\Users\<My username>\Documents\Softmaker\ . The subsequent "clean" re-installation of the latest Softmaker 2018 version I did, "remembered" nothing from earlier installations. But the Hamburger was back. And I could soon restore all previous settings, dictionaries etc.

With a fresh Quick Access Tool stripped of previous additions, I could see that the Hamburger Menu icon is indeed located inside this toolbar and in fact part of the toolbar. If you send it to the list of Commands, it should theoretically be there, among the other commands, ready to be sent back to the Quick Access Tool, perhaps at a different position in the toolbar. I could test this. But perhaps I did not make a silly mistake as I'm starting to suspect. Perhaps it disappears once again! Better not fiddle with the Hamburger??

[Jossi]

[ecbritz]

Thanks for the applause. But wait, not so soon... I decided to move the Hamburger Menu icon from the Quick Access Tool to the Commands section once again --- to see once and for all if there is either a bug or a deliberate step taken by the developers regarding the positioning of this control button.

I sent the Hamburger to the Commands, and again, it disappeared, seemingly without any way to get it back.

As far as I can establish, the only way to fully recover from moving the Hamburger out of the Quick Access Toolbar, is to ...

(a) Uninstall SM 2018 completely
(b) Then remove its memory of previous installations completely, by deleting the Softmaker subfolders at C:\Users\<My Username>\AppData\Roaming\Softmaker\ as well as at C:\Users\<My username>\Documents\Softmaker\ . (Delete ONLY the subfolders named "Softmaker", nothing else at these folder tree locations!
(c) Then reinstall SM 2018 again
(d) Then do your settings, build your templates, and add your dictionaries from scratch
(e) Then build your Quick Access Tool up again, making sure that you leave the Hamburger well alone.

The process is not as difficult or time-consuming as it might seem. It is certainly much easier than tinkering with existing program files. Moreover, I hope to be the only dummy user ever to need this recovery, my case serving as a lesson to all.

In praise of the new layout of controls ...

I found that if you use the Home tab, you can build up a Quick Access Toolbar that will serve almost anything you might want to do with Textmaker. Used in conjunction with the controls already available on the Home tab, you can create a row of control buttons that will speed up your formatting dramatically. The magic of the new layout of controls lies in your ability to adapt the controls to your personal word processing needs, and to gain formatting speed by having the relevant controls at your fingertips.