We’re attempting to set up a collaborative research project where two researchers have equal access and editing abilities on two different computers (working one at a time!). We’re hosting the project and the images on sharepoint. We’ve read all the forum posts about creating portable projects, but we’re still having trouble setting up the correct path for the folder with our images - we’re getting the thumbnails and the metadata, but the photos themselves aren’t loading. Are there updated instructions for configuring things to make sure that the images are correctly linked?
If you have no preference on how the photos should be stored you can simply use the new standard project type which is already configured to bundle photos and project file together in the right way.
If you want to manage the photo files yourself, then you’ll need to set up an advanced project. In the setup you describe, the project file should be placed together with the photos in your shared folder (or sharing a common root folder if you prefer to nest the photos in additional sub-folders). When the project file is in the correct location, open it in Tropy and configure the project to use relative paths in the project settings.
The typical workflow will also be slightly different: for standard projects you can import photos from anywhere and Tropy will create a copy of the photo in the shared folder. With the advanced project, you need to move or copy the photo to the shared folder first and then import it from there.
With multiple devices accessing the same file in a shared folder it’s not uncommon to run into sync conflicts. Many network share solutions allow you to restore previous versions of a file: it’s a good idea to be aware of the configuration at the outset, so that you know how many backup copies there are and how to restore them in case there’s a conflict. If it’s not possible to restore previous versions, then I’d recommend to regularly create backup copies of the project.tpy file.
I think we have the photo locations sorted out now, but can you direct me to instructions on configuring the relative paths? I’m not sure I’m seeing how to do it in the newest update.
Sure! First open your project, then open the preferences window and select the project settings sections. There you can define how the paths to your photos are stored in your project file. Basically, you want to use ‘relative paths’ there: this means that Tropy will always find your photos as long as they stay in the same place relative to the project file.
Please note that when you change this setting, Tropy will re-write the paths currently stored in the project. For this reason you should do this only while all the paths are correct (when the project is empty is always fine of course). If some paths currently don’t work it’s better to first consolidate them and only change the link preference afterwards.