Configurable Custom Data Folder?

[Kizan]

I have Hero Lab and all four legal installations for it. I'm having a problem keeping my custom data files synced across all machines. I was thinking about hard-linking the Pathfinder data folder to my Dropbox account. That way all the machines would "see" the same Pathfinder data folder.

Is there an option for a user configurable path for custom data sources? I don't really *like* doing four separate updates when updates come along but I can live with that. but it's a pain to sync my custom data sources after I've been editing them.

Thanks,

Kizan

[Kizan]

Thinking about it a bit more. Maybe just a subfolder off of the main Pathfinder folder would be great too. Then I could hard-link just that (if it wasn't a configurable option) to my Dropbox account for sync across machines. Heck that way multiple players could sync if they wanted.

Kizan

[ShadowChemosh]

This post maybe helpful for you.

[Kizan]

Thanks Shadow,

I was thinking about doing just that, but it seems like such a hack. Really pumps up the used space on my Dropbox account. I'm a little concerned about what it will make for updates to the app. Not just the Pathfinder stuff, but other updates like character sheets and other stuff.

Do you know if it will break anything? Should I just run the updates on all four machines every time just to make sure?

Thanks,

Kizan

[Colen]

Unfortunately there's no way to specify an alternate directory (like a dropbox folder) for holding .user files. It's something that's been on our long-term todo list, but we haven't found room for it in our schedule yet.

In the thread ShadowChemosh linked, the symbolic link thing is your best bet - it should be pretty easy on OS X, and not that bad on windows. If you have a lot of files, you could even make a batch file / shell script to set everything up, so you could just run it on each machine every time you needed to add an additional file or something.

Hope this helps...

[Kizan]

Dear Colen,

Are there any "gotchas" that I should know about using it. Esp when it comes to licensing or updates. If I only link the data folder I should avoid the licensing issues, yes?

Thanks,

Kizan

[ShadowChemosh]

Is this for all computers you own on your own network? If so I use a piece of software called "Folderclone" that is able to totally duplicate a folder or folders from one computer to another on the same network.

So for example on my "Gaming" computer in my basement has a link to clone a HL folder and a bunch of my other gaming stuff that can't work across a network.

So just before the game I click "Clone" and it only takes about a minute to transfer just the changed files down to my gaming computer.

Just putting it out their as another option for you.

For my players to keep in sync I release data sets through the Powered By Hero Lab. Works nice as it notifies them when they start HL then and it auto installs itself also.

[Colen]

Originally Posted by Kizan

Dear Colen,

Are there any "gotchas" that I should know about using it. Esp when it comes to licensing or updates. If I only link the data folder I should avoid the licensing issues, yes?

Thanks,

Kizan

If you share the whole "data" folder, you won't run into any issues with licensing, but you might run into problems running the product on two computers simultaneously (i.e. two copies of Hero Lab open at the same time); the data folder is used to store temporary files which can be different on each computer. I haven't tried it myself, but if you started running into crashes or weird problems, that'd be my prime suspect. No reason not to give it a try, though.

[rob]

To follow up on Colen's post, you'll only run into problems if you are running two different computers against the *exact same* files in the *exact same* folder. This would occur if you used a shared network drive for all instances of Hero Lab at the same time. However, if you are using Dropbox, you'll be copying all files locally onto each computer, in which case there will be zero issues using the technique.

Hope this helps...