Using DropBox and symbolic links with SketchUp.
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Great post, I've been using this exact method for quite awhile now and it works wonderfully. I was so frustrated not having the same plugins on my computers.
As you mention, the protection is that your files aren't ONLY located on the cloud. In fact, the files on the cloud aren't the ones you're accessing, but rather the ones on your hard drive which Dropbox disperses to all your computers. However, I have had an issue before which you should be careful of. Sometimes when I'm updating my Maxwell Render plugin everything gets erased from my plugins folder! It's happened a couple times and I suspect it has something to do with the symbolic link rather than Dropbox per se. So now whenever I change the plugins folder I copy it within the same folder (it names it Plugins Copy or something like that). So if something goes crazy I just delete the plugins folder and rename the Plugins Copy folder to Plugins. No reason you couldn't do the same thing but copy it to some other non-dropbox location if you wanted.
If I didn't already have this set up though, I'd look into Sugar Sync (https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=9cph9pitfssm&utm_source=txemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=referral). Honestly I haven't really used it much yet but it seems to work a lot like dropbox except you also have the ability to sync folders anywhere on your HD - eliminating the symbolic link hassle. I'm hoping dropbox incorporates this soon so I don't have to worry about switching. I think you also get like 5gb of free storage with sugar sync. If you haven't set up dropbox yet it's worth looking into.
-Brodie
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Very cool but what happend when your Internet Connection is crashed for a month and all plugins are now inside the Dropbox?
you have killed the original for win some place
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@unknownuser said:
Very cool but what happend when your Internet Connection is crashed for a month and all plugins are now inside the Dropbox?
you have killed the original for win some placeYou're misunderstanding how dropbox works I think. With dropbox there's a folder on your computer (C:\Users\bgeers\Documents\My Dropbox). When you put something in there Dropbox copies it to their server and then copies it to that same folder which is located on your other computers in the same location. So now you can access that file either by going to the My Dropbox folder on your hard drive, or by going to the dropbox website, logging in and then grabbing the file from there (basically only useful if you're on a computer where you don't have dropbox installed). Each file also gets a URL. I use this a lot to share images online or to send someone huge files.
So if your internet dies, or dropbox goes belly up, the only thing you lose is that syncing between your computers. You still have your My Dropbox folder on your hard drive with all the files in it.
-Brodie
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Good article, thanks for posting.
XP does not support symbolic links - but you can use hardlinks for files and junctions for folders.
I have just started using them to make my own (and others') version controlled plugins repositories available directly from the Plugins folder.
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@aerilius said:
I've also been using a similar setup for some months, it's very comfortable to have the same plugins in all SketchUp versions on all systems and always up-to-date.
Symlinks are really more powerful than the 'normal' links. On Windows they exist as a file system feature only since Vista+ (as far as I know). Does someone know if there is a more comfortable way to create them (ctrl+shift+drag&drop ?) or a program that can add that capability? Also any known solutions for XP?
I never knew about the ctrl+shift thing - nevertheless, for me it just creates a regular shortcut. The method I use is to select the folder, right-click, select Pick Link Source, go to the other folder, right-click, select Drop As, and choose the type of link you want. I use Junction - I'm not sure what the advantage of Symbolic Link is if there is one.
-Brodie
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@Brodie : I never had that weird problem, if it will happen I will post here. Can it be the issue is connected with the Maxwell plugin? I don't use it so I can't test it. Thanks for letting me know though! About SugarSync, I tried it in the past but I felt the Dropbox way was more streamlined, so I went for it; I actually remember there was a reason in particular that made me stick to Dropbox, but a lot of time passed and I don't remember anymore
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I've also been using a similar setup for some months, it's very comfortable to have the same plugins in all SketchUp versions on all systems and always up-to-date.
Symlinks are really more powerful than the 'normal' links. On Windows they exist as a file system feature only since Vista+ (as far as I know). Does someone know if there is a more comfortable way to create them (ctrl+shift+drag&drop ?) or a program that can add that capability? Also any known solutions for XP?
Edit: I found a utility that adds a context menu and drag&drop to Windows for creating junctions/hard links/symbolic links etc. I've missed symlinks from Windows, but I'm happy that XP has, if at least something that works similar (junctions).
http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html -
@andrea.bianco said:
@Brodie : I never had that weird problem, if it will happen I will post here. Can it be the issue is connected with the Maxwell plugin? I don't use it so I can't test it. Thanks for letting me know though! About SugarSync, I tried it in the past but I felt the Dropbox way was more streamlined, so I went for it; I actually remember there was a reason in particular that made me stick to Dropbox, but a lot of time passed and I don't remember anymore
That's good to know about sugarsync. It seems great but until I have a reason to switch I don't have the time to figure it out. Good to know I'm on the right track based on your experience.
It probably does have something to do with the way the Maxwell installer works. I've never heard of anyone else having issues but I don't know of anyone who's run the installer who also syncs with dropbox. So I'm sure I'm just in a very small bubble. I just thought I'd bring it up as an outside possibility for caution. 99% of users wouldn't need to worry about it but if you use plugins with some sort of installer (mostly rendering plugins I'd imagine), it wouldn't hurt to be extra careful.
-Brodie
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For some reason I can't get this to work on my home computer. I set it up fine at work. I followed the same instructions at home and it seems like it worked, but the link to the Dropbox plugins file did not show up in my Sketchup directory. I thought maybe I'd done something wrong so I typed the commands again and now it says: Cannot create a file when that file already exists. How do I delete the link that apparently doesn't work on my home computer, and what step do I need to do differently to link correctly to my dropbox files?
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@unknownuser said:
For some reason I can't get this to work on my home computer. I set it up fine at work. I followed the same instructions at home and it seems like it worked, but the link to the Dropbox plugins file did not show up in my Sketchup directory. I thought maybe I'd done something wrong so I typed the commands again and now it says: Cannot create a file when that file already exists. How do I delete the link that apparently doesn't work on my home computer, and what step do I need to do differently to link correctly to my dropbox files?
Make sure that you're removing the Plugins folder from C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 8 and move that folder to dropbox (just a simple cut/paste will do). Then choose that Plugins folder in Dropbox as the link source and then drop that into C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 8. That way when SU looks for a plugin it will look into the Google folder and be routed to dropbox. I gather you may have reversed the steps in which case it won't work as a sync. Am I mistaken?
-Brodie
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Brodie, At work I removed the plugins folder from it's default location and pasted it into my dropbox folder. Then I issued these commands:
cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 8
mklink /D Plugins C:\Users\MyUserName\DropBox\Sketchup\Plugins
This created a new folder in my SketchUp 8 folder that linked back to dropbox. At home, I removed the plugins folder from the \SketchUp directory. Since I already have the plugins folder in my dropbox, I didn't paste it there. Then I issued the same commands as I did at work, but the new folder in \SketchUp 8 was not added. When you say "drop that" (the dropbox plugins folder) into my \Sketchup directory, do you mean to copy it? How is the link maintained if I do that? -
Sorry, I didn't really read through the original posters instructions. I'm not sure why you'd use the cmd line for this. Downloading that symlink extension for windows adds a right-click option. I wrote some brief instructions here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=34019&hilit=+dropbox
I think using the right-click method avoids some of the mystery behind using the cmd line. Since you've got the plugins folder in your dropbox and it's apparently set up fine at work at home all you should have to do is make sure you don't have a plugins folder in the google location. Right-Click your Plugins folder in dropbox select Pick Link Source (this is the new option which the shell extension adds). Then go to the google location where SU will look for the Plugins folder right-click and you'll see an option Drop As select that and choose Junction (or according to the OP symbolic link should work too).
Let me know if that works.
-Brodie
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I don't use dropbox but ran across this article expressing some concerns about it's security, just FYI http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/sorry-dropbox-i-still-dont-trust-you/4173?tag=nl.e539
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@hellbank: thanks for the link. As I said earlier in this thread, I'm not a fan of the cloud; there's not a single cloud service out there that can give us a 100% safe service with total protection of our privacy and that can promise no outages or server issues. I simply don't trust the cloud for anything really confidential. That being said, using Dropbox for keeping my plugins and resources in sync between many machines is giving me no concerns in terms of outages (I still have local copies, it's the beauty of Dropbox) nor privacy ones (my plugins are downloded from the net, like many of my resources). I also use Dropbox for sharing files online (my tutorials, images, ect) and since I'm sharing them already, I don't care about "privacy" etc. I think putting confidential stuff online is always a risk and should be avoided as much as possible, no matter the platform we use (email, social network, cloud storage, etc). By the way, I really don't think Dropbox is less safe than GMail or any other Google service -- remember when Google pushed Buzz on the users making their provate contact lists visible to everyone else, also giving a frequency of contact indication? Well I'm glad SketchUp and YouTube are the only Google services I use
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Just a thought - if plugin authors each used a shared dropbox, then it might be possible that we could all get instant plugin updates directly as they are made.
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That would be cool. I have it set up that with a team I'm working with. I write stuff, and they get the updates automatically. I've got a loader script that they all put into their plugins folder that points to their dropbox, but I like this symbolic link a lot.
We should set something like that up. Of course, we would need to do better at making plugins be extensions so the user could turn them off within SU - as modifying the name/moving to a different directory would not work since everyone is accessing the same file.
How many people does dropbox let you share a folder with? There are public folders that share with unlimited people, right?
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@unknownuser said:
How many people does dropbox let you share a folder with? There are public folders that share with unlimited people, right?
There's a limit of 10GB of traffic with DropBox. Then you're folder is suspended from use.
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@unknownuser said:
There's a limit of 10GB of traffic with DropBox. Then you're folder is suspended from use.
per month?
Using LibFred6 as an example, 10GB / 3.5 MB = 2,925 downloads.
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That I'm not sure of. I got suspended when I hosted the first CatchUp on my DropBox folder. They informed me that it's not a file hosting service it's a file storage service?
I do know the suspension lasted 2 weeks on the Public folder only.
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so i set this up today and i gotta say, it's pretty awesome..
(i'm also syncing my keyboard shortcuts, materials, components, and styles.. i'd like to do my preferences as well but i think the fact that i have different sized screens is going to cause some problems with toolbar placement, window size, etc.)
i'm on Mac and since no one itt has talked about it yet, i'll lay out the steps i took..
assuming you already have a dropbox acct, do the following steps on all of your computers you'd like to sync..
● Download Symbolic Linker:
http://seiryu.home.comcast.net/~seiryu/symboliclinker.html
this makes it a breeze to create symbolic links in osx.. it adds a symlink service to finder so you just right-click the file and choose 'make symbolic link'.. the download includes a service which works with 10.6+ or a plugin which is for leopard and earlier.. only use the one that applies to your os version.. install instruction are included in the download.. otherwise, take a trip to terminal
● Backup your plugins folder(s)
i just right-click the plugins folder and choose 'compress'.. generates an archive right there inside the SketchUp folder for easy access later on.. or just drag a copy to your desktop
● Empty your plugins folder
open the actual sketchup plugins folder then select everything and trash it.. you may want to rethink this step? i'm just outlining how i went about it (which worked perfectly btw
).. my thinking was that i wanted to get the folders synced up with a minimal amount of files being transferred so if something went wrong, i wouldn't be waiting for ever to re-upload etc..● Create Symbolic Links for the plugins folders
right-click the folder and choose 'make symbolic link'.. you'll now have a folder called plugins symlink which will have the little little alias arrow on the folder icon.
● Move symlink folders into your dropbox
locate your dropbox folder.. i keep a dropbox shortcut in my finder sidebar.. if you don't, the default location is in your home folder.. otherwise go wherever you put yours..
move the folder 'plugins symlink' into the dropbox folder (or a parent folder inside dropbox if you wish)..
(this step is where my method differs from the ones previously outlined itt… my plugins stay in their proper location with the symbolic links branching out from there)
do this on all computers● Test your sync
since you synced empty folders, the plugin folders on the different computers should have linked up very quickly.. drag a test file into one of the plugins folders to ensure it transfers to dropbox an on to the other computer..● Re-install your plugins
open up the backup you made earlier.. select everything and drag them back into the sketchup plugins folder (or you could just drag them into the symlink folder.. you can also install future plugins through the symlink folder.. the files will transfer to your plugins folder, your dropbox, and your linked computers.. magic)
if your plugins folders weren't identical prior to doing all this (mine weren't), you can now use dropbox to merge them.. after the first computer's plugins have been uploaded and transferred to computer#2, take computer2's plugins and repeat this step.. in the case of having the same file already on both computers, you'll be prompted to overwrite the file (replace), or to keep both files (if using lion), or to stop.. you can go through each one individually or choose 'apply to all' (which is what i did).. any shared files will stay the same and any non-similar files will sync.
do the same thing for anything else you want to sync..
good luck.
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