Loading data at start-up

[martink]

My colleagues use PhotoMechanic on networked Windows (2,000 and XP) machines which are, for IT reasons, well locked-down in terms of adding additional programs or retaining information on the hard drive between sessions. 
All settings files - for example, addresses for FTP Explorer or favourites for Explorer - are retained on a central server and copied across at log-on.
I am hoping that they will be able to use an identical list of cities, photographers' names, FTP accounts etc
Stationary Pads appear to be able to be saved and loaded from a common file once PM is up and running.
There are three areas where you might be able to help.
Firstly, how can I load up the same Preferences from a central server for all machines.
Secondly, is there a way to load up a list of, for example, Cities or Special Instructions, at start up, without having to go through the manual process of importing them ?
Thirdly, is there a way of importing a defined list of FTP addresses and account details and the location of the Code Replacements at start-up, again without an importing process ?
Many thanks for your help.
Martin

[Kirk Baker]

Martin,

My colleagues use PhotoMechanic on networked Windows (2,000 and XP) machines which are, for IT reasons, well locked-down in terms of adding additional programs or retaining information on the hard drive between sessions. 
All settings files - for example, addresses for FTP Explorer or favourites for Explorer - are retained on a central server and copied across at log-on.
I am hoping that they will be able to use an identical list of cities, photographers' names, FTP accounts etc
Stationary Pads appear to be able to be saved and loaded from a common file once PM is up and running.
There are three areas where you might be able to help.
Firstly, how can I load up the same Preferences from a central server for all machines.

With current versions of Photo Mechanic on Windows, most settings are stored in the Windows Registry.  If you were to export the proper registry keys to a file on your server before the data is wiped out, you could import those keys from the server before you began your next session with Photo Mechanic.

In version 4.6, the settings are stored in a file which could simply be copied back and forth.

Secondly, is there a way to load up a list of, for example, Cities or Special Instructions, at start up, without having to go through the manual process of importing them ?

Using the import/export using RegEdit that I outlined above would take care of this issue as well.

Thirdly, is there a way of importing a defined list of FTP addresses and account details and the location of the Code Replacements at start-up, again without an importing process ?

Using the import/export using RegEdit that I outlined above would take care of this issue as well.

So if you want to try and do the RegEdit way for now, I can explain what keys to export/import, and you can look forward to 4.6 where all settings are stored in a set of files.

-Kirk

[martink]

Many thanks for that.
Is 4.6 far away ?
And whilst I do not claim to understand copying Registry entries, I have colleagues who do.
Which keys should we be copying ?
Best wishes,
Martin

[Kirk Baker]

Martin,

Many thanks for that.
Is 4.6 far away ?
And whilst I do not claim to understand copying Registry entries, I have colleagues who do.
Which keys should we be copying ?

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Camera Bits, Inc./Photo Mechanic

(everything under that key)

Version 4.6 is under development.  I don't have a release date yet.

-Kirk

[martink]

Thank you for the advice over the registry keys.
If I was running PM on Macs, is there a similar process to identify the shared the lists to load up from a central server at start-up time?
In previous versions of the MacOS it might have been a matter of loading up the preferences files, but I suspect that things are not quite so simple now.
The ultimate hope would be to share the same lists regardless of platform, but I suspect that might exceed your ambitions for 4.6.
Many thanks for your help,
Martin

[Kirk Baker]

Martin,

Thank you for the advice over the registry keys.
If I was running PM on Macs, is there a similar process to identify the shared the lists to load up from a central server at start-up time?
In previous versions of the MacOS it might have been a matter of loading up the preferences files, but I suspect that things are not quite so simple now.
The ultimate hope would be to share the same lists regardless of platform, but I suspect that might exceed your ambitions for 4.6.

That would indeed exceed our plans for preferences handling in version 4.6.  Sharing the exact same files is not possible because of things like path specifications being very different between the two platforms.  But export files can be shared and imported on both platforms.  Maybe you could do that.

-Kirk

[martink]

I thought that might be a step ( or many steps ) too far.
But for those people who are working on Macs, is there a file that can be copied from a central location that does the same as the registry keys and tells the program where to look to load up the FTP addresses etc ?
Many thanks,
Martin

[Kirk Baker]

Martin,

I thought that might be a step ( or many steps ) too far.
But for those people who are working on Macs, is there a file that can be copied from a central location that does the same as the registry keys and tells the program where to look to load up the FTP addresses etc ?

Yes, it is just one file for most of the preferences.  In the user's Library/Preferences/ folder there is a file called "com.camerabits.PhotoMechanic.plist"

But realistically, Mac users could just put a hard link to a folder on the server and have the entire 'Preferences' folder be accessed solely from the server.  Then nothing special would need to be done for the user to resume where they left off last time.

HTH,

-Kirk

[martink]

Many thanks for that.
Are there likely to be any issues with two people running PM on different machines browsing the same folder ?
Best wishes,
Martin

[Kirk Baker]

Martin,

Many thanks for that.
Are there likely to be any issues with two people running PM on different machines browsing the same folder ?

If they both write to the same file at the same time then yes, there would likely be problems.

-Kirk