Best Practice for creating a shared Resource Library?

[Neil Barman 165]

Hello All,

I'm in a fairly new office of 8 people that is using VW2009 Architect. As such, there hasn't ever been a "symbol" or "resource" library (A "Favorite" file) established before, so the task is now mine. This library would have our custom hatches, custom symbols, our vectorscripts, etc. As it is a work in progress, it will be changing and growing for quite a while.

In VW2009's Preferences, I have found that one can specify "Workgroup and Project Folders" on a shared hard drive (our server), so I am planning on building a file there that has all of our custom resources, then pointing everyone's VW at it. The file that I am building would have all of our resources, available in the Resource Browser and divided up into folders wherever possible for easy sorting & locating. By having it as a shared file in a "Workgroup folder" any changes I make to it would be available to any user each time they restarted VW, so I wouldn't have to install the new additions/change on each machine individually.

Does this overall approach sound like a good way of setting such a shared resource? If not, what would you recommend?

If it does sound like a good way of doing such a thing, might you have any tips as I'm building this file?

Thanks!

-Neil

[Dieter @ DWorks 24]

That's the way I had done it also here at our office. It's the best way I know of, but the problem with is was that VW was becoming too slow when working with these files. So we now download all files to our own computers now every week to have the latest versions.

I think there is another good way of doing it and that's the way I said last above, but instead of manually replace the files, you should synchronise the folder instead so that it happens automaticly.

[VW-PJHM 0]

This is also very similar to the way that I have set up our office.

One of the things that I have run it to though, is that sometimes when an individual adds additional favorite files for a specific project occasionally they appear on other peoples computers for some reason. This can really slow down everyones computer so be careful. If it is something that you only use occasionally then I would suggest opening the file directly rather then adding it to your favorites. This way you can still access the information in the resource browser, but it will not go onto other computers.

Only have the files that you use all the time in the favorites to make sure things run faster.

Also make sure that your server is logged on prior to starting VW otherwise VW will default to each computer preferences , then you will have to repoint it to the server.

Lastly we are now trying to figure out a way to make sure that all of our laptop users have updated copies of the standards, workspaces, etc on there machines for when they are out of the office. So far we are thinking of a direct copy, that we would then updated, say monthly rather then updating live.

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VW - PJHM VW2008 Architect SP3 Mac OX 10.5.6

[Dieter @ DWorks 24]

I had to set up the library for a client last week, and I found a better solution then always copying the files to the computer. This works in windows, and I don't know if macs have this too. I used a synchronised folder, which you can find in windows. I think it's called a work folder or something. The users still have to click the sync folder from time to time, but all files will be synced this way and it is faster.