Education is key. Your account is your responsibility, so if you didn't save a backup file, you're screwed.
And yes, the relationship between the BitShares DEX and OpenLedger is confusing. OpenLedger, as far as I understand, is a fork of the BitShares DEX with other things they've added such as the OPEN.*tokens. It's still a bit confusing, but I think of it like busy.org, chainBB, and steemit. They all use the same blockchain, just have different interfaces for interacting with it.
The only thing i would change in the description above is the referance to openledger being a fork of the Bitshares dex. Although i can see what your saying; I think it is better described as a business that is running ontop of the Bitshares blockchain same as busy.org run off the steem chain with a different UI.
Yeah, that's probably a better way to say it. The similarities in the UI make me think "fork of the code" though and also lead to the source of the confusion. These tools are really amazing, but they are technically challenging for most people to understand.
When it originally came out we called it the BitShares Exchange Network (Big BEN) because one blockchain serves as the backbone and common order book of a network of exchanges including openledger and freedom ledger. I'm probably missing some and deliberately not mentioning one that is to be.
Maybe having a name for the "standard" BitShares DEX+wallet might clear up some confusion. Maybe call it the "BitShares.org Wallet" or something? Most people, I think, think of this when they think of "BitShares" but that leads to confusion (much like "Bitcoin" and "bitcoin" are two different things... a protocol and a currency on that protocol).
I do have a backup file. It doesn't do shit. It says oh yes that is a backup file, and then still says nothing is there. Wat.
The whole thing with bitshares is confusing. I'd bet that's probably one of the main/only reasons it's not more popular, people don't understand it
I agree, it's quite confusing. I think it requires multiple backups every time something changes (i.e. you add a coin, do a transfer, etc). You may have a backup from before you had anything in it.