Thread by @LeonAquitaine

Did you ever lose your keybindings or HUD layout configuration?
Or maybe preset changes, or wish you could revert a preset you modified a bit too much?

Good news - we can use GitHub for backup!

[Difficulty: Savage, but worth it]

#ffxiv #gpose #gposeguide
🧵/ ∞

For this recipe, you'll need:

- 1(one) GitHub account
- 1(one) installed Github Desktop client
- 1(one) Game installation
- LOTS of patience

Ready? Let's do this!

Step 1 - Dude, where's my preset?

Let's start by finding where your FFXIV installation lives.
(I'm using the standalone client on Windows 10, so your mileage may vary.)

Press Control+Shift+ESC to open the Task Manager,
Find the game in the list,
right-click then select the 'Open File Location' option.

That will open the 'game' folder, and if you have gshade installed you'll see the 'gshade-presets' folder there as well.

Leave it alone for now, we'll get back to it later.

Step 2 - Github setup

Now we'll set up a GitHub repository to backup our presets. Create a free GitHub account if you don't have one already:

github.com/signup

Once signed in, on the top menu select [Repositories], then click [New].

Give it a name, mark it as private (so only you can access it) and select any .gitignore template. (It doesn't matter which one; we'll replace the content later.)

After that, click Create repository.

Now that you have a repository, click the [Code] button and select [Open with GitHub Desktop] in the dropdown menu.

If you don't have GitHub Desktop installed you'll see a download button at this point: install and sign in.

(If that's the case, you may need to navigate back to your repository list and select [Open with GitHub Desktop] again.)

After that, you'll see a [Clone a repository] window. The path shown may be different on your computer, but it doesn't really matter. Click [Clone].

You should see the name you gave to your repository under [Current Repository]. Right-click that area - that'll open a drop-down menu. Select [Show in Explorer].

You may see two items there: a .git folder and a .gitignore file.
If you can only see the .gitignore, you may need to enable the option to see hidden files: In Explorer, type Control+F1, select the View tab, then check [Hidden Items].

With that out of the way, let's edit the .gitignore file so only preset files are shown for backup.
Right-click .gitignore and select Edit.

Replace everything with just this two lines, then save (File > Save):

*.*
!*.ini

(These two lines instruct GitHub desktop to ignore all files BUT the ones ending in .ini.)

We're halfway. You can do this!

Now select the two items (with Control + A) and Cut them ( Control + X).

Now we switch back to the Game folder, and type Control + V. This will paste the two items there.

If we switch back to GitHub Desktop, you'll notice that the repository is now marked as invalid. That's fine, just right-click and select [Remove] and then confirm. Its job is done.

In GitHub Desktop, click [File] then [Add Local Repository]. Go back to the Explorer Window showing the 'game' folder, copy its path and use it as the Local Path. Click [Add Repository].

And that's all the heavy lifting; your backup is not properly set up.

You should now see all the preset files under the Changes list. That's because this is a fresh repo, so we need to commit these changes.
Add a comment, then click Commit;
Once it finishes the commit, click on [Push Origin]. That'll sync your folder with GitHub.

After all that, you should see a list with no pending changes. Well done!

Now let's test it.

Go back to the game and modify a preset. In this case, I'm enabling the Copyright experience under one of Neneko's presets.

If I go back to GitHub Desktop, what I see is a list of all the modified files!

I can then even choose to revert a change by discarding it via right-click dropdown menu, or commit it so I don't lose my modifications.

3 - So what about keybindings and HUD layout?

Right, I almost forgot! You can do exactly the same with the game configuration files.

Those can be found under 'Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn'.

Follow the previous steps to create a repo for your configuration files.

The only difference is that its .gitignore file should contain only one line:

*.log

Everything else is the same:

Cut the two items into the 'FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn' folder,
Remove the invalid repo,
Add a local repo pointing to the 'FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn' folder,
Commit and Push.

And now all your configurations are backed up.

Let's test - I switched two icons in-game...
...and the corresponding modified configuration file is now shown in GitHub Desktop.

Now, if I ever lose my HUD configuration, It'll be shown as 'modified files' in GitHub Desktop. I can simply select all changes and discard them (thus restoring the previous state.)

My apologies for the extremely long thread, but this is how I keep the insanity that's my configurations and presets from going kablooie.
If you have a better solution, feel free to chime in - and I hope this short (lol!) guide helps you never lose your HUD again. =)