Is it Possible to Change the Location of Realm Works Backups?

[goldensword52]

Hi all, the title pretty much sums up my question: I would like to change the location where my Realm Works backups are stored to something other than "Documents\Realm Works". Is this possible, and if so, how? Thanks in advance.

[Parody]

Not within Realm Works. The locations of both the master.realm folder and the backups folder are fixed.

[Acenoid]

You can create a hard link in the file system.

There was a posting about this subject already. Check here:
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthrea...light=hardlink

[goldensword52]

Hmm, the issue is that I use One Drive to sync my documents between my desktop and my laptop. Because they both use the same folder and same filename, it creates conflicts.

Funnily enough, I already use hard links for doing this syncing, and I was reading that other post earlier. But my understanding is that hard links only create a "copy", and the original would still create sync conflicts. Is that correct? Or am I missing something?

Parody, you mention that it is not possible within Realm Works, but does that mean it is possible with some sort of work around?

[rob]

If you utilize hard links and One Drive to circumvent the way Realm Works behaves, you will almost assuredly run into some very nasty problems with database corruption if you EVER also utilize the cloud and syncing. That includes if you ever want to leverage the Content Market, which will require that the importing of content be orchestrated through our server.

There are some very complex issues at play with managing content across multiple computers, especially when also incorporating intelligent cloud syncing. So be very sure of what your long-term plans are here. You could be shooting yourself in the face with the solution you are exploring.

[Parody]

Hard links (or the very similar junction points) are the workaround. A hard link to a folder makes the one location point to the other. There's no copying involved; the files and subfolders are still only in one place. There's two paths to get to them.

If you hard linked a location in your OneDrive folder to your main Documents folder, then you've discovered one reason to not do that. Save or copy files you want synced into your OneDrive folder.

[goldensword52]

Rob: I'm not trying to circumvent anything. Just the opposite, I'm trying to prevent conflicts caused by Realm Works using the same folder and even the same filename on multiple computers. It seems like the simplest way to solve that would be to just put them in a different folder, don't you think? If that isn't possible, then the second best option would be to just not back up half my backups to One Dirve, but obviously I would prefer the first option if possible.

Parody: I know hard links don't technically "copy" a file, but they do leave the original path in place. Which means One Drive will continue to try to sync to the original location, and conflicts will still occur. I don't see how that solves anything.

[rob]

Your intentions are pure, but we've created Realm Works with the typical user in mind. So what you are proposing to do will actually cause problems. Each computer requires its own machine id so that users can leverage different computers and all internally generated ids are guaranteed to be unique. The moment you constantly share one database across computers and making the distinction transparent to those computers, you start blurring this distinction that RW manages and relies upon. Once that happens, RW's ability to deal with things properly is potentially compromised, which leads to the warning I provided.

We spent a LOT of time working through how to manage all these issues under the covers. Explaining it all here would be way beyond realistic to even attempt. So you'll need to trust me that what you're seeking to do stands a very realistic chance of causing problems for you. Those problems could potentially result in data loss, which is something we're extremely careful to safeguard users against, but there are limits to what we can do when creative users exploit different technologies to "improve" their workflow.

Please give this serious consideration before proceeding on your current path.

[Parody]

What I was trying to say is that, at least in my experience, OneDrive shouldn't sync Realm Works' automatic backup folder because it doesn't sync everything in your local (My) Documents folder; OneDrive has its own folder that (by default) has a Documents folder in it. This is completely separate from your local user account's Documents or My Documents folder. If OneDrive is syncing your local (My) Documents folder, or if Realm Works is putting its backups in your OneDrive Documents folder, then that's something that you or someone else enabled.

In Windows 10's version of OneDrive, you can choose which folders OneDrive will sync by opening OneDrive Settings (right-click on its cloud icon in the notifications area/system tray and pick Settings), switching to the Account tab, and picking Choose Folders. On the Auto save tab you can choose whether the local or OneDrive Documents folder is the default for saving new files.

Unfortunately, I don't have Windows 8(.1) installed on anything handy to see if it's the same, and my Windows 7 machine doesn't have OneDrive installed. I use Dropbox for that sort of thing. (I know Microsoft uses OneDrive to pass my Windows 10 settings around, but otherwise mine is empty.)

In any case, at least backup conflicts don't really hurt anything. I imagine you mostly just waste internet bandwidth copying around files you never use.

[goldensword52]

Rob: Just to be clear, I'm not even trying to change the location of the database, let alone make those changes "transparent" to Realm Works. All I would hope for is for my desktop to save the automatic backup files to a folder named "Realm Works Desktop", and my laptop to use a folder named "Realm Works Laptop". If that just isn't a feature of Realm Works, then I guess that's the end of the story. But you guys are pretty smart; don't tell me something as simple as that would be impossible.

Parody: Yep, that's pretty much exactly how things are set up for me. The problem was that my Desktop and Laptop share the same (My) Documents, so they both try to copy Realm Works backups to the same folder. Like you say, there wasn't any real risk of data loss, but eventually there would just be hundreds of backups because the names were changed to avoid conflicts. I guess I'll just have to unlink one of those "Realm Works" folders from One Drive and not upload those backups.

Thank you guys for taking the time anyway.