help with profiles

[Lars Brehmer]

I'm having a tough time working with property profiles and could use  
some advice.  Is there any way to prevent new profiles from being  
created for an object - behind my back, so to speak?  For example  
when I switch profiles, all that should happen is that the icons of  
about 150 objects get changed, in this case to the same icon in a  
different language. Also the menu items for about a dozen pop-up  
menus get switched to the other language.  What happens is that if a  
comletely unrelated  script calls for an object to move to a  
different location or be hidden,  the rect and/or visible becomes a  
new profile property, so when I switch profiles later, objects move  
or are hidden when they shouldn't be.  So far as a workaround I have  
created masks for objects that a script hides, so instead of hiding  
the object, the script shows the mask instead, in effect "hiding" it.  
This is fine with me. For objects that move, all I can do so far is  
tweek the interface a little, making the movement unnecessary. This  
changes my interface in small ways that really aren't my first  
choice. The only other thing I can think of is to add lines and if- 
thens to the script that switches the profiles, but this seems to  
defeat the purpose of profiles in the first place.

I already knew that working with property profiles can be a little  
bit tricky - the first time I tried to use profiles a couple of years  
ago as a newbie, I sort of created a nightmare for myself - I had  
added a single profile to quite a few objects while still designing  
the interface, so as the interface took shape and I moved things  
around, or hid them or changed sizes, etc, my objects suddenly had  
dozens of profiles each and the profile switch took forever and did  
dozens of things I didn't want it to. Back then I gave up on profiles.

I thought I had a handle on it now, but I guess I don't. For example  
besides the two things I already mentioned, I noticed that the switch  
took a little bit longer from Master to the second profile than from  
the second back to Master and when I looked at the profiles, most of  
the Master profiles suddenly had a layer profile - I guess I must  
have changed a layer somewhere, which of course changed the layer of  
every object in front of it. Now I am deleting the layer property  
from dozens of profiles.  What am I missing that could have prevented  
all of this? In preferences, the create profiles automatically is  
unchecked, and I honestly have no idea what the "don't save settings  
when switching profiles" even means.  Any tips?

Cheers,

Lars