New Idea To Export and Backup X17 Project Files Within The Project Manager?

[Steve_Nyhof]

Now that X17 is out, I want to bring this topic up to a larger audience. Sorry it is a bit lengthy, but read it through carefully as this is very important if you want a more common way to backup your Projects.

 

If you want to see a video where I go over this click the link below...

https://my-plan.stevenyhofdesigns.com/v/Hid8hQZgCivkhlZPBQft

 

I would like to preface this post by stating that I love Chief, and use it every day to make a living. Even with its shortcomings and having to create work-arounds to do things, it is still an increasable piece of software. We lose sight of this now and then when we get caught up in something that is failing or frustrating to figure out. I believe the current Project Manager and backup system falls short of what we need as users to operate within this new X17 management system effectively.

 

I also want to encourage you, the reader of this post, if you are an avid user of Chief and want to see it improve, then do not be silent on this topic. Share your thoughts and ask some questions. I do not claim I fully understand how all the moving parts work, and what I am proposing may not be the solution. But I am hoping that this post will generate some conversation that convinces Chief to take a closer look at what we now have and what is missing that will change how we interact with the new Project Browser that manages our Projects.

 

PM = Project Manager or the Project Browser

CP = .caproj - The extension used on Exported Projects

HD = Hard Drive or Local Disk

CS - Cloud Service or Online Backup Software

BS - Chiefs built in Backup System

 

I want to share what I understand about the PM to this point...

 

Autosaving the Projects:

As you are working within the PM and saving your work, the .plan and .layout files (I believe other file types) are also being saved to your HD. Therefore, your work is being saved to disk, but it is not backed up to a CS.

 

Chiefs Backup System:

Built into the new X17 PM is a new BS. This backup system, backs up your entire system, your toolbars, hotkeys, user library, etc. and the PM Projects. Each time the BS is run, typically in the evening and currently with Chief software running, it produces a .zip file with a date and name stored in a default system folder or a folder of your choice. Based on my approximate 20 projects, I am exporting close to 5GBs with this one zip file. The backup file contains your Projects that you can access by opening the file.

 

If you want to make sure you are backing up your work to a CS you need to select the root folder of these ever growing BS files. If you are like me, I want to make sure that my work is backed up on a CS each night in case of HD failure in any way. It does not take extensive math skills to know how quickly you will be increasing your storage both on your HD and with the CS as your projects grow. This to me in unsustainable nor practical. To say it differently, I do not need to backup my user library everyday. I have it manually exported to my HD where it is backed up by my CS. My CS checks my library files to see if anything changed (a new export) and backs it up if changed. 

 

I want to add that there is a number of backups that you can set (called Retention) before the system will remove the oldest backups. So it is not as though the storage will continue to grow, but with a retention, it also means that the Projects that have been saved in this backup file, that you may want to access later, will in time be deleted from your HD.

 

Personal Side Note:

I am using the PM for only the work I am working on to keep my projects manageable. Meaning, at the moment, I am Exporting my projects manually that are being worked on and completed so they are backed up to my HD and CS. I delete the Projects from the PM that I no longer am working on. This helps keep the file size of the BS file lower. But this is the very reason I am bringing this subject up. The current BS is not a solution for a daily backup system.

 

.caproj file type and Exporting Projects:

The .caproj (CP) file is a renamed .zip file extension. It is a zipped file that contains all your project files, your .plan, .layout, and other file types you use within the project, within the PM. I have opted to manually Export my project(s) as stated above that I work on each day to my HD so that my CS can backup these files. 

 

The CP is a self contained file that also includes your assets. (See below). Because it is a single file, it can be treaded like any software file. Like your .plan and .layout is now treaded, saved to your HD and backed up and shared with your colleagues over your CS. The Exported Project file with the extension of .caproj is in my mind the new Chief file type. This does not mean that you cannot export a single .plan or .layout, you can and for various reasons you will.

 

But I am bringing attention to a shortcoming in the PM that I want Chief to consider.

 

Assets:

Assets are now very intuitive in X17. I am bringing this up only so that others may expound on this topic within this topic.

 

Proposed "Project Backup" System:

The BS has a lot of power in being able to transfer an entire Chief eco system containing your toolbars, hotkeys, libraires, projects, etc.. I am not suggesting that this be replaced as I also know that it is a part of a Chief cloud backup and sharing system still being developed. The BS is also very cool as I in one step backed up from my Desktop everything, and Restored it to my Laptop - BOOM! Now both systems are exactly the same. But would I do it again? Not if I am making changes to projects on both computers? Nor am I interested in running a large backup just to work on a project on another computer. I would need to be on top of this each time I sat down by the next computer. Thus the reason for this post.

 

What I am proposing is an additional backup system for Projects themselves to a specified local folder on your HD. These Project Files, because they are a self contained file type (.caproj) can be treaded SIMILAR to a typical SAVED file, like .plan. A backup of these Project files would be a copy of the files that are currently in the PM and saved within the Chief software. That is why I say this would be SIMILAR to a SAVED file.

 

In X16, a .plan file would be opened and saved to your HD in a specific folder. Saving this .plan file while working in Chief, is in fact, overwriting the .plan file saved on your HD. With each save the .plan is updated with the new data. 

 

In X17, the PM is storing your plans in a format called, Projects, and saved to your HD within the control of the Chief software. Meaning, in this current state, the file you are working on within the PM is not currently accessible in a folder that you control. Only through the BS can you gain access through a ZIP file, and to your Projects. If you are sophisticated in a higher understanding of backup software you might be able to automatically dig into this ZIP file and extract your projects. Or do it manually. But that again is not practical, nor typical file organization.

 

WHY are we being asked to give up our very common control over our work? The simple answer is that Chief has built a system that is designed to prevent the breaking of links and assets. This is a good thing as the current X16 backup plan is still often missing assets or has broken links between the .plan and .layout. All previous version of Chief has had this problem and caused a lot of headache for Chief and its users. If you are wondering why this big change in X17, this is why? But it has come with a side effect I am trying to bring attention to.

 

The "Project Backup" system would be an additional backup system with Chief that can run each night (preferably without Chief software being open), saving our projects to our HD so that our CS can backup these Projects to be stored and/or shared with a team. 

 

There are some details about the options of this backup I have not sorted out, but I think the backup needs to OVERWRITE the previous backed up Projects so that they are always current, or the latest data, just like a saved file OVERWRITES itself on our HD so it has the current and latest data.

 

Just as a .plan saved file is shared now with another computer, it is a copy of the .plan file still on disk. Therefore, just like a saved file, an Exported Project file (.caproj) is made a copy that can be shared, and therefore must also overwrite the original after it is worked on, so that the original again contains the latest data. We are responsible for this process as we have been.

 

Through a process of backing up each evening our Project files, we can be confident that our work is saved, backed up locally and within our CS, and available to be accessed and shared as we have done for years. 

 

NOTE: If the project is now saved to disk and backed up to our CS, we can then also DELETE it from the PM. We do not need to store our completed Projects within the PM if we chose and want to make the PM more manageable. But this Project Backup system needs to operate so that this can be an automated process that we can be confident is saving our work each day to our HD, so that our CS can also run each day.

 

As you have read, there are some moving parts here that need to be understood to operate in a team environment or even a single user that jumps between computers. 

 

Syncing:

A brief note on syncing. I use a CS called IDrive. It can do versioning so I can always go back to a previously saved file if I need to access something within an older drawing. But I also use Google Drive and Syncing because when I move between my desktop and laptop, I can download this project file to the computer I am working on and Import it into the PM, make my changes, and then Export it back to the main folder I took it from, which then again syncs the file, overwriting that the original file so that it is now current with the latest data.

 

Please share your thoughts and questions

 

 

 

[DRAWCO]

This new system is very confusing.

[Steve_Nyhof]

The one thing I just found out is that if you have a folder added to a Project, that folder remains with the Exported Project. When you import that Project later into the PM, it already has the same folder applied. That is very nice!

[SHCanada2]

i think because CA is going to the cloud, this is just a temporary limitation.. If you are worried about HD failure, then I would suggest backing up CA's backup, or just do the entire CA directory where it stores everything. For file sharing I would suggest keeping to non PM mode if you use a shared replicated drive.

 

 

[Steve_Nyhof]

9 hours ago, SHCanada2 said:

i think because CA is going to the cloud, this is just a temporary limitation..

And so you are ok with waiting on CA to implement their Cloud as your go to cloud service? Have you looked at how their other online services work in your account? Like 1990's! Based on their track record of 80% to 90% implantation of their tools, I am not so optimistic that once their CS is rolled out that we will not be asking for more and more to actually make it work properly. I love my versioning that already runs and works perfectly with my CS. Others I am sure have their methods as there are many options today with the various CS's.

 

I do agree they want to implement their original plan for this for investment sake, and I honestly am fine with it... IF...    I am asking for an additional backup tool if some of their users want to control the Projects with their own CS. Again, I am more concerned personally for backing up my work in a way I have done for years and with my own CS, but it will be the teams that for now could benefit from what I am proposing.

 

Added: Or give me some good reasons why backing up the CP's is not a good idea. Or why it is a bad idea?