Wetterberg

So I'd like to tell you about my experiences patching in a group. Specifically my band, Kopenhagen Laptop Orchestra.

What we've decided to do about 1.5 years ago is to avoid the endless passing of emails, fb messages with patches, and circulating thumb drives.

We set up a joint google drive folder, which holds all our patches, abstractions, externals, notes, and max for live devices.

What's the benefit of doing that? Well, I can tell you that today I was patching a test rig for our timing modules, and my auto-complete in Max showed me a new abstraction that my bandmate has made. Because the sync works automatically, whichever changes I make to our rig gets distributed on the fly.

It even works when I, for example, update BEAP - that updat gets distributed to the crew.

It's... really a gamechanger for us, and while it may be "obvious" to some of you, I'd just want to make the option clear to all you awesome people.

Oh, and if you have any questions about it, then AMAA. ;)

It's... really a gamechanger for us, and while it may be "obvious" to some of you, I'd just want to make the option clear to all you awesome people.
Andreas
Oh, and if you have any questions about it, then AMAA. ;)


on-collaborative-work-dat-google-drive-tho

what folders are you sharing on google drive? how do you manage the fact that max package format has to be in a specific location on your computer? we do all this, not using google drive but another method. just interested in your experiences. i've found it to be a total pain ;-)

Max understands symlinks/aliases. It is not enabled by default though. It's in the max preferences "Resolve Search Path aliases". I'm using Dropbox for all this, and yes, this made my life a lot easier!! Although I'm not working too much in collaboration, but simply on two different computers.

@stkr do you mean the Clippings folder? Apparently max doesn't care *where* that clippings folder is, it just has to be in the search path.

I'm taking the corporate out of it by using Bittorrent Sync. Mostly to collaborate with myself on multiple machines in multiple locations.

I have my work folders in it, as well as my Max externals, Arduino libs, etc folders so that my all machines automatically update when I add things on one.

I did put it on pause recently 'cause I had a folder magically disappearing and trying to resolve it with their support people. Sync is still in beta...

I'm taking the corporate out of it by using Bittorrent Sync. Mostly to collaborate with myself on multiple machines in multiple locations. 

I have my work folders in it, as well as my Max externals, Arduino libs, etc folders so that my all machines automatically update when I add things on one. 

I did put it on pause recently 'cause I had a folder magically disappearing and trying to resolve it with their support people. Sync is still in beta...


@dtr that sounds scary! So you'd definitely need to do a local backup (outside the sync environment) when running it, huh?

i need to take advantage of all things in package setup. so i need packages.

symlink preference is cool, but ultimately working from a network folder such as dropbox is really bad news down the line, especially with live / m4l (documented known issues, total mess).

so it seems i still need my interim step of local machine folder syncing. yuck.

@STKR : I dont't know if I understand your package issue, but you can put your package folder anywhere, you just have to indicate to Max where this folder is by adding a line to a textfile named "packages.txt" at the root of the Max folder corresponding to your path :

Hi,
@STKR : I dont't know if I understand your package issue, but you can put your package folder anywhere, you just have to indicate to Max where this folder is by adding a line to a textfile named "packages.txt" at the root of the Max folder corresponding to your path :
ex : /Users/me/Dropbox/MyPackages;


@wetterberg: Scary for sure. I'm indeed contemplating adding a Time Machine backup HD as a backup till they got this figured out. Haven't had Sync on since it occurred (and that's really inconvenient because I really got used to rely on it). That being said, I've had weird stuff happening to me with Dropbox and other tools I used as well. It's software, there are gonna be bugs...

yeah, it's scary, for sure. We had a scare recently, turned out to be user error with no data loss, thankfully. Google Drive has a rollback feature versioning thing going on, so that does give us a sense of security. But we do regular local backups, just in case.

That's the thing. If I had deleted things unadvertently Sync is supposed to keep all deleted items in an archive till explicitly cleared, but it's not there.

that sucks so bad... don't even know what to say.

Sync mystery solved: user error. Logs say the folder got deleted on my desktop. I must have done it by accident. It sat in the deleted archive for 30 days then got purged automatically. I noticed and reported having lost the folder on the 34th day... (the expiration period can be set and disabled in the preferences)

aww. that's... good? Bad? I guess you can use admin settings and whatnot to avoid this, by setting the folder itself to write-only or something?

The good part is that Sync appears not to be a buggy tool that eats data at will. The bad part is I lost a 6 month project. The main result, a Max patch actually, luckily was transfered to a collaborator's system before shortly before it happened. And yes, Sync settings allow to disable purging altogether. The archive folder has to be emptied manually then.

I guess here's a drawback of a direct peer-to-peer tool that doesn't pass and store data through a corporate server, which of course is also its main advantage. Another one is that it doesn't need an internet connection when the computers are on the same (W)LAN.

On collaborative work. Dat Google Drive tho.