I deliberately let the Pro revert to Free on a single machine to see what would happen.
Character DB inaccessible, expected.
Thinkboard visible, but not editable, expected.
Organiser inaccessible, but summary notes still visible in Navigator window. Reasonable.
All Pro features like timelines missing, as expected.
When I reactivated the next day, I noticed it had lost my target settings, even though they should have been in the same project file somewhere. I had to re-do the daily word count, the overall book target count and the deadline date.
The Organiser had reverted to defaults too, I think, as it was now showing full names for characters instead of the initial letters from the day before. Another lost setting?
Shouldn’t those have just been automatically put back when the Pro version found the config files, or whatever it uses? They must have been stored in the project somewhere. It seems strange to wipe them out when switching between the two versions.
Also a question: Does Papyrus Author require a constant connection to the internet for licence verification? I can’t find anything in the manual about that.
If I go away for a week, say with only my laptop and no internet, would I be able to use it as long as the licence still had at least a week to run, or would I need to keep connecting it to wifi to get it working?
You should still be able to access the details that you have already created in the My Characters database, but you will be unable to edit or add to it - same as with the Thinkboard.
All the settings are saved in one file - papyrus.ini. This can be overwritten during an upgrade process. However, it is possible to export your settings so they can be reapplied, should this happen.
Go to Options / Preferences then under User Interface / Miscellaneous.
Click on the Export/Import… button:
Select the options you want and click “Export”. You can change the name and path where the file is saved if you want.
Whenever you need to, you can then import these settings. Simply select the “Import Settings” and make sure the correct file is selected.
No, it’s not constant as in permanently connected or even connecting once a day. But, as with other software, Papyrus Author does need to check in with its update and authentication server on a weekly basis. The cycle allows us to provide the best service and it usually takes just under a minute.
Yes, PA will run without connection to the internet for a week. You can, though, if you have a mobile signal, use it as a temporary hotspot for your laptop to enable the verification process.
