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• • September 6, 2013 at 2:10 pm #65192
    Drako

    Participant

    Hi!

    I’m storing all my INDD files into a server so that many people can access them at the same time. We usually work directly on the Server (opening the files from there, editing them and saving them) however there are few things for which I need to copy all files into my drive in order to work properly with them.

    Basically I want to make a little program that copies the files into my drive automatically but does not move them. At the same time I don’t want that anyone else works on the original files that are in the Server while I still have the files copied to my drive because otherwise any change anyone else make will be lost in the moment Ill replace the original files with the one I edited from my drive…

    I though of making my program to create .idlk files for each document I copied to my drive so to making it look like I have them opn in the Server even though I actually do not have them open. If I do that, no one else would be able to open the files for the time I have them in my drive.

    Any idea of how InDesign makes the .idlk file? Making a copy of the file and simply change the extension does not work, i tried that :-P

    TKS in advance!

  • September 6, 2013 at 2:31 pm #65193
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Clever idea to make an IDLK file. I figured making any kind of idlk file would work, but no? Drat.

    You are not alone in your challenge; many InDesign workgroups need similar things. But question: Why can’t you move them? Why do you need to copy them?

  • September 6, 2013 at 6:57 pm #65197
    Drako

    Participant

    Nooooo!!!
    These files belong to my company! Too many files, too important files. This program I’m making is so that this is not done manually, many other people need to do the same thing on their computers (with other files and some times with the same ones when I’m done) so if each one of them starts to do this manually we will end up loosing files, forget them in the various computers and so on…

    If I would be the only one doing this procedure, I would not have problems moving them but more people doing this, more are the chances of mistakes, therefore this program is needed so its done by a computer with no window for mistakes :-)

    To answer your question, no, if I create an other file with the same name but with the extension IDLK does not help, INDD does not see it as lock file. I figured it must have some data inside that “tells” INDD what file each IDLK refers to but I did not figured out what data, also because I cannot open an IDLK files as I get the error message that the file is being used by an other process. Obviously when I close the “other process” (INDD) the file disappear. I tried to make a copy but I get the same error.

  • September 8, 2013 at 8:25 am #65210
    Chris Thompson

    Member

    Sounds like you might need a version control system like they use for software development. CVS, SVN, Git etc etc. Check files out and in to a system. I think there are open source free ones.
    Takes a bit of persuasion to get some people to use them, but worth it in the end.

  • September 10, 2013 at 12:45 pm #65239
    Drako

    Participant

    Mh, not a bad idea however I need a way more simple solution… how you say, it would take a bit to get some people to use a version control system…

    I think I’ll simply set it up so to make all the files that are still in the SVR ReadOnly. INDD does not allow to overwrite files ReadOnly and when someone opens them it show [Read Only] in the window title.
    I’ll explain everyone that when they find a Read Only file in the Server it means that is has been copied into an other computer so those files are not the final ones. I believe my colleagues are smart enough to keep that in mind… hopefully.

    Thanks anyway!

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