Profiles
Configuration Profiles are a new feature, available in FreeTrainSimulator 2.0.0 and newer versions.
Profiles allow to customize configuration and settings for different requirements and environments. While traditionally, application settings were global, and are affecting all sessions of the game play in the same way, use of profiles allows to easily setup and switch between different environment configurations. Each profile has it's own configuration settings, as well content selections, keyboard or raildriver configurations are persisted individually with each profile.
This allows to setup multiple different environments, such as different simulator settings related to different eras (ie. steam vs electric locomotives), testing different graphic resolutions, or even just have profiles using different languages.
Profile settings, as all other application data produced by FreeTrainSimulator, are no longer stored in Windows registry, but in the user's application data folder (typically C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Free Train Simulator). This allows to have as many profiles in parallel as there is storage space, and also decouples from Windows-proprietary registry storage.
Profiles are available with no further action required to get started. Opening the Menu-application, profile selections are available via a toolbar in the header section.
A "Default" profile will always be available/created, if no other profiles are configured. Each profile will (unless cloned from another profile), start with default settings and selections.
Once there are multiple profiles creates, users can easily switch between them, and each profile will load the relevant settings configured for this profile.
To create another profile, hit the "Create Profile" button just next to the profile selection box.
The profile selection box will turn into an editable control, allowing to input the name for the target profile. When don, hit the "Accept" button to create and save a new profile with default settings. The new profile will be selected immediately.
If the name of an already existing profile is entered, no new profile is created and the existing profile will be loaded and switched to instead.
Cloning a profile works similar to creating a new profile, however it will copy all settings from the currently selected profile instead of using default settings. This is in particular helpful to test variations of configurations and settings, allowing to quickly change between them and keep track of consist environment options.
Deleting a profile will remove all stored settings for the currently selected profile, and switch to the first available profile. If all profiles are deleted, there will always be a default profile created to ensure operations.
Almost a hidden gem, it is also possible to place existing profile settings with a route or even activity, so specific settings settings could be made for a route or activity i.e. by content builders, to override or ensure specific settings from user profile configurations.