Help with computers, and xlights

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Baf05

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Dec 15, 2012
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I am using to computers for my display this year. The main home computer upstairs in the warmth of my lounge room for the programming and general duties of getting ready for this years display.

Down stairs in my workshop I have another computer that I am going to use to run the display, ( I don't have a pi, nor do I want to get one at this point). I use the down stairs computer to do the testing and fixing, I can set the lights up down there and not invade my upstairs space with all things blinky like I have in past years.

this presents a problem in that when I make changes on one computer I have to transfer data between the two machines, I have a few ways to do this, via the network, USB, dropbox (which I don't know how to use), but it all seems a tad clunky, and easy for me to screw up.... which I think I have.

Both computers are on the network and I can save from the downstairs computer to the main computer upstairs, although interestingly cant do the other way, nor does the upstairs computer let me test the lights....

Anyway, what I would like to do, is have xlights data on just one computer and have both computers read and write to that one data file. I know its possible, I just don't know how to do it, or set it up.

Is there someone who understands what I am after, and can help me achieve this?
 
Well I have clunked around it (although trying to get both machines to let me edit files is proving extremely difficult, can do everything I want from down stairs to the upstairs computer, but I cant edit the down stairs one from upstairs.... frig!

I have managed to point lights to the right place on both machines to save and collect data for music and sequences, however the models and other data is a different story, still I don't think that will matter I can just clunk around that if and when I make changes.
 
I would strongly advise against mapping a drive from another computer and using it as your show folder. Fseq files are large which means opening and closing sequences from the remote computer will be amazingly slow. Best solution is dropbox or even a git repository and checking in and out your sequences. Most use dropbox but i prefer the latter as it allows me to time shift back to old sequences if i need to.
 
I will look into drop box, I don't even now what a repository is, let alone how to set it up.

I have noticed already though the slow process.

I am looking at drop box, how do I know exactly what files I need to place in there?

last silly question, I have downloaded drop box, do I now point xlights at C:\dropbox\xlights folder?
 
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You should be able to setup a shared folder in Windows on the main computer by right clicking and selecting share just make sure you give everyone full control. Then on the downstairs computer set the show directory to the shared folder eg \\computer1\xlights Another option if sharing the show folder is a problem is you can try a program called syncbackfree and have that setup to automatically sync the files between your two computers on a schedule say every hour. This allows you to maintain two sets of files local to each computer and avoids you having to manually copying files each time you make a change it can be downloaded for free from here https://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/freeware-hub.html
 
Baf05 said:
I am looking at drop box, how do I know exactly what files I need to place in there?

last silly question, I have downloaded drop box, do I now point xlights at C:\dropbox\xlights folder?
Click to expand...

Put your show folder into the Dropbox directory and on the setup tab in XLights point to it.

In XLights it is best practice to keep everything in your show in your show folder or a directory underneath it. I have gone over this in several of the XLights videos.
 
Hi Keith, I have watch a ton of your videos and find them very help. However, I have found the youtube seems to order them randomly and finding what to watch first seems quite difficult. (although I am sure there is some why to search by date....)
 
I've a similar setup where the show computer has a share created and it allows my other computer that I do my programming on to access the files. Been that way for 3 years now.
It does take a little longer to save files, but I put up with it as it saves copying and moving files around.
The show computer also does daily snapshots of the drive\share so I can easily restore an older file if needed
 
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