Better support for networked resources

[Christiaan]

I'm in the process of centralising and rationalising resources such as Libraries and Templates for our office. The strategy I'm in the midst of testing is to put all the resources on the server in folders, named as per those in the Vectorworks application folder, and then replace the folders in the Vectorworks application folder with alias' (shortcuts) to the folders now on the server.

This seems to work okay so far but it's not ideal as we have a number of people who come in with laptops, so when I implement this on their machines they lose all their resources when they're not in the office.

So, in this instance, it would be good if they could toggle between local and networked resources.

I'll post any further suggestions here when I think of them.

[P Retondo]

Christiaan, sounds like what you want would be wonderful, but wonderfully complicated!

Right now, for Windows computers there's a thing called "Briefcase" that allows you to semi-automatically update a set of files of your choice. If there is such a thing for the Mac, you could use that tool to coordinate the standardized resources between the server and laptops, instead of using the "alias" approach.

[Christiaan]

Thanks Pete, there no such thing I know of on Mac OS X, but I'm glad you bought it up. I hadn't thought of propagation as a method for standardising resources. I could probably use Apple Remote Desktop to push the files and Automator to push or pull the files maybe.

Still it would seem simpler, from the point of view of a user, to simply toggle between networked or local resources.

[matto]

In Automator in the xCode actions there is a group of Actions for CVS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_Versions_System), although may still need a bit of unix on the server to setup up the CVS server folder.

You should be able to do all the client side stuff with the Automator Actions.

Well in theory at least i haven't set up it up here yet but keep trying to find the time to get it working.

[Christiaan]

In Automator in the xCode actions there is a group of Actions for CVS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_Versions_System), although may still need a bit of unix on the server to setup up the CVS server folder.

You should be able to do all the client side stuff with the Automator Actions.

Well in theory at least i haven't set up it up here yet but keep trying to find the time to get it working.

Okay, thanks. You couldn't tell me which xCode tools I need to install and open, or how to find the group Actions for CVS?

[Christiaan]

Actually, not to worry. Apple Remote Desktop does the job perfectly:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=560275

[Christiaan]

Another, related, wishlist item:

Ability to centralise and synchronise resources

http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=64697