A curious thing happened to my Macbook Pro's finder function and I had to have Apple Support help me fix it. As a result when I launched Aperture some of my previous settings and custom commands were lost. The main one was the “q” toggle for highlighting the hot and cold areas of a photo. When I went to customize the setting I got this message which I don't recall seeing before when I've tried to customize commands. It is as follows: “The Command set “Default” is owned by Aperture and can not be edited. If you wish to edit it, you must first make a copy.” I did not want to mess things up so I closed things out and came here for advise/help.
Florian,
Sounds like a permissions issue. Run both the OS Disk Utility permissions repair, then repair your Aperture permissions as well (check the FAQ if you’re not sure how).
What did Apple have you do to fix the Finder problem you had?
@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?
Joseph- They said it was a permission problem! and essentially had me reboot the computer with Cmd-S (I believe) pressed then had me go through a series of typed in commands, then fiddled around with preference folder in ~Library. Anyway, the computer rebooted up to the galaxy wallpaper and a dock that had just the core apps on it. I had to reload my wallpaper and add my apps back to the dock, reload all my widgets to my dashboard. When i opened Aperture, the icons I had customized on the top bar were gone and had to be redone. Also, now when I hover the cursor over a picture the EXIF data does not show either!!! Ugh!! I’ll try the repair as you suggested when I get home from work today and let you know. Thanks, as always!
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
Florian,
Basically all your preferences were reset to the default, and have to be changed again. It’s the fact that you can’t change them that’s odd.
Do the basic permissions repairs and I think that’ll fix you up.
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?
Joseph- OK. Hopefully, doing the basic Aperture Permission repair will also bring back the EXIF info when hovering over a picture. I enjoyed that feature although it could be annoying at times! :) I’ll post my results when I get home and run the repair.
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
Florian,
You’re referring to the tooltip, toggled on and off under View > Metadata display > Image Tooltips.
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?
Back to the original question, it is normal behavior for Aperture to prevent you from changing the default command set. You need to duplicate it first and then you can customize commands.
Thomas
Joseph- Did the permission repair but still the same message. Tried the database repair as well. It still says that the “default ” is owned by Aperture and wants to to first make a copy before editing. I was able to activate the image tooltips, thanks for that. So what next? I guess I could make a copy like they suggest and then try to customize. When I click on the drop down menu for Default I only have Import, Duplicate and Bookmark as options. Everything else is greyed out. I’d appreciate any thoughts. Is it time to make another call to Apple Support??????
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
Bit the bullet and called Apple Support and spoke with someone handling Aperture Issues. Basically I had to create a duplicate file and named it as my shortcuts and created the shortcut. He said that Aperture wants to hold onto it’s now default file. Anyway, it is now working so let this be an FYI if anyone else runs into this peculiar problem.
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
Florian,
Thomas had told you exactly the issue, and you even said it yourself — I didn’t realize that was the problem, that you hadn’t duplicated the default set.
In general, when the software tells you to do something, it’s a safe bet that this is what you are supposed to do ;-)
-Joseph
@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?
Oops. Somehow I missed reading Thomas’ reply. Feeling foolish right about now, but at least everything is back to running like I set it up before. I was just skittish because I had to reload and re-do almost everything once everything on my computer went back to the default settings and didn’t want to take a misstep and have to start all over again! Thanks again.
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com