Author Topic: Question about absolute file paths and multiple users  (Read 3155 times)

dbonneville

  • Calf
  • *
  • Posts: 1
Question about absolute file paths and multiple users
« on: September 14, 2020, 10:52:14 PM »
Hi, I’m looking at the LinkStation 210 4TB but have a question on what file paths look like, due to how Adobe software works with absolute file paths that have a user name folder path embedded in linked files, normally.

In Adobe InDesign, for example, we link to a lot of assets from within documents, currently by using DropBox, which forces a username into the filepath. If I link to an asset, InDesign stores the reference to that asset as an absolute path, like MacHD:Users:Joe:Documents:A_Sample_Asset.indd. If the next person opens the same file with the link in it, the path to the linked asset will say A_Sample_Asset.indd is missing, because it thinks the path should be MacHD:Users:Sally:Documents:A_Sample_File.indd. InDesign then lets you fix all the missing assets that happen to sit in the same folder. But once the original author opens the document again, all the linked assets will be “missing” (because Joe opened it after Sally "fixed" it for herself) and will have to manually go through the re-link process (back to "Joe" in the filepath). And so it goes back and forth, which simply does not work on large collections of linked documents.

So my question on the NAS is, when either Joe or Sally connect to the NAS, will file paths look more like “x:/Project/Some_Adobe_File.indd”, or from a Mac, something like “Shared_Project_NAS_Drive:Project Folder:Some_Adobe_File.indd”, so that all our absolute paths are the same because they are on the NAS and not our personal machines with our user names embedded in the path? If Joe or Sally creates a new linked asset, and either Joe or Sally then open that document, will the absolute path that InDesign stores simply be the same each time?

I hope that makes sense!

Thanks,
Douglas Bonneville
« Last Edit: September 14, 2020, 10:54:55 PM by dbonneville »