HOWTO: Merging lists of hidden ads and search results between characters

[DemonPriestessSahala]

Taken from a comment on #163

Problem

• You have a list of hidden ads/search results on character A that you want to copy to character B.
• Character B already has some results in this hidden list that you want to preserve.
• You want to merge these lists, but the import settings process will overwrite the existing list for Character B (and perhaps a few other settings you may not care to).

Solution

Here's a temporary workaround to help you copy the blocked-ads list between your characters less painfully:

• Close down the client entirely (all tabs/windows).
• Navigate to C:\Users\(your username)\AppData\Roaming\fchat\data\(character 1)\settings\
• Using a plaintext editor like Notepad or Notepad++, open the "hiddenUsers" file.
  It's a square-bracketed list of comma-separated names, where each name is enclosed by quotes. This file has no extension, so you may have to change an Explorer setting to properly see it, or right-click the file and use Open With.
• Copy the comma-separated list of names from inside the square brackets to the clipboard.
• Navigate to C:\Users\(your username)\AppData\Roaming\fchat\data\(character 2)\settings\
• Open the "hiddenUsers" file for this character.
• Paste the names from your clipboard into the empty square-bracketed list in this file.
  If your file for character 2 already has names that you'd rather not overwrite, just tack the new ones on the end of the list. Make sure not to add extra spaces and follow the existing format. Don't forget that you may need to add a comma after the end of the existing list before pasting.
• Save the second file and close both of them.
• Open the client and check character 2's settings.

I recommend that you make a backup of the character settings before you make changes to any of the settings files.

hiddenUsers file contents for character 1 (from whom you're copying the list):
["Hidden Character 1","Hidden Character 2","Hidden Character 3"]

hiddenUsers file contents for character 2 (before):
[]

hiddenUsers file contents for character 2 (after):
["Hidden Character 1","Hidden Character 2","Hidden Character 3"]

By using a program like Excel that works with comma-separated data, can spot/filter duplicate values, and re-export a comma-separated list, you can maintain a common list of hidden characters that you can copy from profile to profile as the list grows, and periodically merge in additions made from any of your characters. I'll add another article on how to do this.