Cloud Settings

[Ed Wolfstein]

Here's one I would find useful, and I'd like to hear if others might like this as well:

In the field, I use my laptop for immediate edits (on deadline, etc.) but often come back to my desktop to do a secondary edit days later (usually for stock, etc.)  Wouldn't it be great if all the IPTC Stationery Pad info, Keywords, even Replacement Codes, were all stored in some online spot so that when you fire up PM on another machine, all your workflow settings come along with you, no matter what device you are editing on. Perhaps this would need a log-on feature, or work with DropBox, or in the Mac world, somehow sync with iCloud. The files are pretty small I believe, (correct me if I'm wrong) but I think it'd be a great and a pretty unique feature of Photo Mechanic.

So in addition to "Load..." and "Save..." perhaps you could have a more universal "Sync..." button.

Just a thought.

Cheers!

- Ed.

[Hayo Baan]

Hi Ed,

The way I have “solved” this is by synchronising the complete set of Photomechanic preferences between the desktop and laptop. Works great for me.

Hope this helps,
Hayo

[Ed Wolfstein]

Would that sync any code replacement text files too? I suppose if I placed all the files in one folder, and synced that folder, or used a DropBox folder for everything that might do the trick. Thanks!

- Ed.

[Hayo Baan]

Would that sync any code replacement text files too?

Yep, all of it. I'm on a mac, but I think it will work on windows too.

The only glitch with this approach is that folder paths are transferred too and if they do not exist on the other end, things may not fully work there (eg., my favourites panel shows lots of greyed out paths on my laptop as these folders aren't present there). Not a big issue but just something you need to be aware of.

I suppose if I placed all the files in one folder, and synced that folder, or used a DropBox folder for everything that might do the trick. Thanks!

Just sync every photomechanic preference file as well as the folder in ~/Library/Preferences. Note that the library folder is normally hidden so you may not see it in Finder. On the terminal you can get there easily enough though (or use one of the various Finder methods to see it)

Cheers,
Hayo

[devenh]

What I do on my laptop and desktop is to use DropBox.  Each machine has a DropBox folder that contains a PhotoMechanic folder that holds all the PM files I want to share and synchronize. 

In fact, I use DropBox in this manner to save all the setting files for all my important apps.  For example, I store my Photoshop action files there.  In addition to the obvious benefits of this, I find it very useful when moving to another machine or doing a complete reinstall of the OS that I can simply access all these setting files in one place.

Deven

[nick.lagalle]

Dropbox is a perfect solution to sync those files, however I don' think it will sync your preferences.

[devenh]

On a Windows system I believe most of the PM settings are stored in the registry, so you are correct that Dropbox will not help here.  However, Dropbox does help on things like Code Replacement files which PM reads each time it starts.

To get around the registry limitation, one would have to save their preferences to Dropbox and then load them from the system they want to share with.

Deven

[Kirk Baker]

Deven,

On a Windows system I believe most of the PM settings are stored in the registry, so you are correct that Dropbox will not help here.  However, Dropbox does help on things like Code Replacement files which PM reads each time it starts.

To get around the registry limitation, one would have to save their preferences to Dropbox and then load them from the system they want to share with.

Only older versions of PM saved the majority of the settings in the Windows Registry.  Newer versions of PM save to either an XML file or an SQLite database file.  Either of which can be put up on Dropbox.

-Kirk

[devenh]

For most settings this is great, but what about path names?  Wouldn't this foul things up if the directory structure were different on the two systems?

Deven

[Kirk Baker]

Deven,

For most settings this is great, but what about path names?  Wouldn't this foul things up if the directory structure were different on the two systems?

Absolutely.  You'd have to re-choose any preferences paths on the other system.  But that's what the Import/Export feature is for.  It only Exports preferences that are not path-related.

-Kirk

[Ed Wolfstein]

It's been working great for me through DropBox so far. The cool thing about an iCloud-ish approach is that these steps would be transparent: i.e. no Import/Export or DropBox Syncing required. It's kinda neat when my iPhone images "magically" appear on my iPad and iPhoto without me having to do squat. Of course, you can disable this feature, and it only syncs if both or any involved devices are on WiFi.

Just a though.

Cheers!

- Ed.

[judophotos]

DropBox works great for me for IPTC and using it now for several months. It couldn't be better.

[Ben Curtis]

A possible solution would be:

Location for preferences: PMDefault / Dropbox
If Dropbox set Dropbox folder path: _____________
Sync also Paths: Yes/No?

[Sven]

A possible solution would be:

Location for preferences: PMDefault / Dropbox
If Dropbox set Dropbox folder path: _____________
Sync also Paths: Yes/No?

I really like that Idea