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Shared Favorites Files


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In the "Favorites" Folder in our shared User Folder in Dropbox (Dropbox > User Folder > Libraries > Favorites) I have placed a subfolder, and into that Mac aliases to our content Library Files.  Unfortunately, it seems these aliases are not recognized by PCs.  If I replace the aliases with the actual files, these actual files are too easily deleted by anyone that removes them as Favorites, via the Resource Manager on their own computer.

 

Is there a way to have these centralized, shared Favorites files without the risk of their being deleted?

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Instead of using your user folder set them up as part of a workgroup folder, this way they can be in a single central location, such as dropbox or a network drive.
Its better where possible to not store your custom libraries as favorites, instead store them in the default library location in the user or workgroup folder, this improves performance of the resource manager/selector and reduces the chance of accidentally editing or deleting the library.
Additionally if the custom libraries are related to a specific object type with an insertion tool this will make them availbel in the tools resource selector.

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On 1/14/2025 at 3:39 PM, jcogdell said:

Its better where possible to not store your custom libraries as favorites, instead store them in the default library location in the user or workgroup folder, this improves performance of the resource manager/selector and reduces the chance of accidentally editing or deleting the library.

I always store all my library in the workgroup favorite folder ( after many test) because it is very hard to find the good défaut folder , and if you put it in wrong folder when you select a tool you won't see your file , but you always see the file in the favorite folder .

And by that way I can have my personnal "folder tree" .

When I need a resource I right click on a symbol or whatever and import it and then it import the symbol and the nested part , with the same folder tree, because the folder tree in my template is the same as all the files in the favorite 

(in my template I have all the empty folder and for favorite file I start from template and purge it at the end instead of quickly find the resource I need )

 

And if no mistake, you can put the file on the "server" or cloud as read only, by the way other people can import it or open it but can't modify it 😉

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On 1/14/2025 at 2:39 PM, jcogdell said:

Its better where possible to not store your custom libraries as favorites, instead store them in the default library location in the user or workgroup folder, this improves performance of the resource manager/selector

 

A few versions ago the Resource Selector performance for Favorites was terrible but I believe something was done under the hood about it + since then it's been perfect so I don't think there is any longer a performance advantage to using the Default library location over Favorites...?

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

@Ben3B
Thats definetly true, but be careful how many favorites you have and how large the individual favorite files are.
Favorites can significantly slow down the performance of the resource manager and tool resource selector, as they get indexed/checked for changes everytime the manager or selector is opened.

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35 minutes ago, jcogdell said:

Favorites can significantly slow down the performance of the resource manager and tool resource selector, as they get indexed/checked for changes everytime the manager or selector is opened.

 

As above this is not my experience, at least since VW2023 or whenever it was. I have something like 75 Favorites files.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

@Tom W.
It may only the size of the favorites file that is important I'm not 100% sure, what I know for definite from discussions with the Vectorworks developers is that Favorites do have an impact on how quickly the resource manager or resource selector opens and populates. This is more an issue for the resource selector as any delay impact drawing speed.

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1 hour ago, jcogdell said:

This is more an issue for the resource selector as any delay impact drawing speed.

 

Absolutely. This is precisely what I was experiencing in VW2022. It was so slow I would always try wherever possible to make selections in the Resource Manager instead because it was ok there. I sought advice on the Forum + was informed that keeping all my resources in a single file would makes things faster, but also that changes were afoot + in the next version things would be better. So rather than spend the time consolidating dozens of files into one master file I sat tight + lo + behold, in VW2023 the problem had gone + it's been fine ever since. I have two textures files which are 1GB + 809MB in size, a Plant file which is 774MB, a symbols file which is 889MB plus numerous other 500MB+ files + it all works perfectly. I'm just saying that the problem you describe definitely did exist but for me at least it doesn't any more. I don't experience any issues whatsoever cramming my Favorites with as many files of whatever size I want. And I am very grateful to VW for that!

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