+1 on this.  Columns should be part of Preferences.  AND, we need to be able to insert non-optical lines in the LDE for long, searchable comments.  A 200+ surface multiconfiguration lens with multiple sections needs more commenting than the very limited existing per-line comment space.

Try this. Open lens.Zmx, the file that opens when you start OS or do File…New. Make whatever changes you want to the Hide property of the various columns. Then save the file. OS should thereafter open with the required columns hidden.

of course, if you open a file that has these columns set to show, they will be shown, but you will only need to save them once with the hidden columns and that’s it. Saving your own variant of lens.zmx should make it default to your preferred display.

You can also set ant file you want as the startup file. It’s set somewhere in Project Preferences. Don’t have OS handy to be more specific.

• Mark

That’s what I thought too, but I had tried that (and just tried again to be sure) and saving the default file with the columns closed has no effect.  Which is odd because saving *other* files with the columns closed does work.  I tried changing the default file type from ZOS to ZMX and saving the default lens.zmx file but no difference.  I did not see anywhere in the Project Preferences to choose the default lens file.