Symptom

When trying to create, open or save a label, BarTender locks up and/or crashes.

Solution

Custom BarTender File Dialog

In BarTender 9.2, we replaced the Windows file dialog with our custom file dialog.  The new dialog supports opening and saving files to Librarian. There were also additional enhancements such as adding shortcuts to the shortcut bar that were appropriate for BarTender (such as BarTender Documents instead of My Documents).

Using the Default Windows File Dialog

In some cases, our custom dialog may not operate as quickly as the default Windows file dialog, causing slowdowns and in some cases crashing. With directories containing hundreds of files, the Windows file dialog seems to have better performance, and this can be noticeable on a slow PC. 

As of BarTender 9.4 SR2, it is possible to switch to the Windows common file dialog using an undocumented registry value. To do so you'll need to access the following registry key (type regedit in Windows' search box to access the Registry Editor):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Seagull Scientific\Librarian\File Dialog

And then create a new registry value with the following settings:

  Name = Use Windows Dialog
  Type = REG_DWORD
  Data = 0x00000001 (1)

Using this registry key is not recommended for anyone using Librarian, because it disables Librarian integration with other applications.