Pasted Graphics and PDFs not archived

Freeway
1

I did a quick check of FAQs and old posts but did not find anything relevant so sorry if this has been covered before.

I have a few pasted graphic logos here and there on my site and they work fine during any particular editing session.

I have 30 glorious inches of monitor space ( x’s 2) at work but I need to keep working on the road and home. So I archive the project, take it home and most resources are found except for the PDFs and pasted graphics. So I spend quite a bit of time analyzing every page for missing graphics before I can continue working. It seems to randomly choose a graphic for the pasted graphic so I do not get a missing resource error. It tells me about the missing PDFs so I can quickly re-configure the project for those.

Unfortunately, I need to work on 3 different computers throughout the day and being relegated to my 13" laptop for all web site development is not optimum to say the least.

I’m assuming I don’t have something checked or i’m not using the Link to PDF action correctly.

This happens on the same machine if I decide to make a blockpoint and change the working folder.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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2

HI Tony I have not come across this problem before so you may want to send the problem in as a possible bug in the meantime …have you thought of just using a stick to hold the project then you can just plug in and amend the file as and when on any machine

I do this quite a bit when I am working on a project
max

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3

Thanks for the reply Max.

I’m new to Freeway (starting with ver 5) so much of this is probably just teething pains. I’m totally pleased with the product overall.
Maybe i’m not supposed to use “save as Archive” but I get all kinds of resource errors if I simply copy the working project folder and move it to a different machine.

I ran into a problem early on (day 2) where resources were lost when I tried to move the project using a jump drive or other removable media. I even had a case where I grabbed a JPG from a networked volume and crashed Freeway. So I’m in the “if it hurts, avoid it” mode until I get a feel for the development environment. I’ll revisit it at some point.

If you have been successful doing this, then I’ll pursue some testing to get it working here as well.

Right now to avoid missing resources, I’m moving all of the raw sources to the media folder. Even PSD and PDFs. Is this standard practice? I’ve had fewer errors this way.

I wish I had time to RTFM but have watched all of the video tutorials and I think i’m doing things the right way.

Got a deadline of next Friday so I’m trying to knock this site out quickly and spend a little more time on the next one.

---- More info on the pasted graphics problem

I assumed by pasting a graphic that Freeway would create a resource with a random file name (which it does in the Site Folder when you publish or preview). However, it is not created in the media folder.
So when you copy the project, the Site Folder is empty and the media folder lacks the pasted graphic file with which to recreate the images.

----- More info on the PDF problem

Using the “Link to PDF” action, doing a “save as Archive” and moving to a different machine. When I publish for the first time, it complains about missing PDFs. Using the resource editor I see that the path name is absolute from the old machine (other resources are relative to the new machine). Locating just one of the PDFs changes all the paths relative to the local machine.

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On Jul 18, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Tony Diodato wrote:

Thanks for the reply Max.

I’m new to Freeway (starting with ver 5) so much of this is
probably just teething pains. I’m totally pleased with the product
overall.
Maybe i’m not supposed to use “save as Archive” but I get all kinds
of resource errors if I simply copy the working project folder and
move it to a different machine.

Actually, this is one of the primary reasons for this feature! So if
it isn’t working in a particular case, you might want to contact
support[at]softpress.com and ask them if they want the file for autopsy.

Right now to avoid missing resources, I’m moving all of the raw
sources to the media folder. Even PSD and PDFs. Is this standard
practice? I’ve had fewer errors this way.

You shouldn’t need to – Archive should find them and put them in
there for you when you make an Archive.

I assumed by pasting a graphic that Freeway would create a resource
with a random file name (which it does in the Site Folder when you
publish or preview). However, it is not created in the media folder.

When you paste a graphic into Freeway, the graphic data is slurped
into the Freeway file itself as a binary object, and when you save
your Freeway file again, that data will add to the file size of the
document. If you are getting missing file errors from something you
pasted into Freeway, then I would say that’s a bug. Definitely worth
raising to support, because they will want to see it so they can fix
it. That’s not at all how the app is supposed to work in that case.

----- More info on the PDF problem

Using the “Link to PDF” action, doing a “save as Archive” and
moving to a different machine. When I publish for the first time,
it complains about missing PDFs. Using the resource editor I see
that the path name is absolute from the old machine (other
resources are relative to the new machine). Locating just one of
the PDFs changes all the paths relative to the local machine.

Again, this is not how it’s supposed to work when you Archive a
Freeway file. This is happening inside the Action, but Freeway is
ultimately responsible for resolving paths to linked files, so even
more reason to raise this with support.

Walter

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5

I think I may have found the cause of most of the problems. I was getting good at tracking down the missing resources every day but today I was getting a “file not found” on one particular page when I tried to preview but no indication of the filename. Just an error code.

I used the Resources editor to track down the offending file by shell sorting the publish checkboxes.

I’ll cut to the cause… max file length is 21? Non-negotiable?

Most of my original files are longer than 21 chars so every one was truncated. I haven’t verified it yet but i’m assuming this is why the original image files are not being copied into the Freeway file?

I knew it had to be a rookie mistake.

I’ll find out later tonight when I move to another machine.

I’ll try to distill the problem down with a simpler, test project file (this one is getting fairly large).

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6

Sometime around 18/7/08 (at 10:49 -0400) Tony Diodato said:

Right now to avoid missing resources, I’m moving all of the raw
sources to the media folder. Even PSD and PDFs. Is this standard
practice? I’ve had fewer errors this way.

Yes, it is standard practise. It isn’t a ‘magic’ folder, but it is a
good single container for your media files. This is JUST an
encouragement by Softpress, trying to make us all be a little tidier
about how we store our files.

Freeway does NOT automatically (or manually) create items in there at
any time. It ONLY generates files within the nominated Site folder,
as that’s where the final published web-ready items are made and
uploaded from.

If you need to work on different machines through the day then you
must find a better workflow than juggling things the way you seem
to have been doing. As a decent Appleshare File Server is probably
not handy or convenient for you, I strongly recommend using a
removable storage device of some kind, whether solid-state or
spinning disk, and keeping your work on that. That way, you should
never have ‘lost’ resources again.

BTW, when you say ‘pasted graphics’, what do you actually mean? If
you paste graphics straight into Freeway from some graphics software
then there is no file link. This is generally bad practise (your
Freeway document can get huge, among other issues), although it
does mean that you won’t have any file links to break! :slight_smile:

Using the resource editor I see that the path name is absolute from
the old machine (other resources are relative to the new machine).
Locating just one of the PDFs changes all the paths relative to the
local machine.

Yep, Freeway does its best to relink things when it can see other
‘missing’ items in the same place. What you have to remember is that
when you copy something to another disk it is an entirely different
digital document. You can move files about on the same disk, and
Freeway will keep track better than a street conman doing the ‘three
cups’ game. But if you copy a file somewhere else, that copy is
simply different. You have to tell Freeway to use it instead of the
original file that it is pining after.

k

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