How big is your show folder

Gerald

Gerald

Apprentice elf
Joined
Jan 5, 2022
Messages
52
Hi all
This year's small display is up and running and thanks to everyone who helped me when I had problems
So my current show folder is approx 18gbites in size
If I wanted to start a new folder for 2023 do I just create a separate folder in the main C/documents /xlights (the original) and store all new items in the 2023 folder ?
Do you all just keep the main folder building in size or archive all the old things from this year and start new
 
Well you should have a back folder set in xLights so that's one copy. I use the same Christmas folder for my show and just add (mostly) to what I have. Then when I upload to the controller, I make a new playlist.
 
Good question, and everyone will do it differently. I have a main xLights folder and have multiple different show folders under that for different years, holidays and testing. anything that will be used across multiples shows I try to leave in the xLights folder, such as music and sequences to import.

The one thing you NEED to do is clear the cache from any show folder you are not actively using. The cache is what tends to eat up storage space.
 
Two things will be making your show folder huge. Backups, and Render Cache.
Best to move these elsewhere - at least that way when you accidentally delete your show folder, you still have access to the backups.
Render cache is a temporary directory, and best stored elsewhere too, especailly if you're making copies as a backup - this is all throw-away data that is not needed to be kept / backed up.
 
It's only year 2 for me and all of my sequences are imported so that influences my choices...

But I just start a fresh folder with the layout only. If I reuse sequences I import them again (I do have the old mappings, but those haven't proved very useful). The media collection is staying in the same place year on year.

I have saved the old folders because I'm a packrat. Let's face it, they're not useful without the display hooked up, and I'm not gonna do it the same way again, so I'll never use them. But I do clean out all the render cache, backups, .fseqs, and so on from the prior folder, like @Skymaster suggests.

I have folders for experiments like @Indigogyre suggests.
 
merryoncherry said:
The media collection is staying in the same place year on year.
Click to expand...
Keith mentioned something very interesting about this at the Sydney mini. I'm trying to remember exactly how it works.

It's something along the lines of - if you move / rename your Show directory / parent structure - and things are "beneath" it - then it'll be able to find them when opening sequences, even if they are moved I believe. This is especially important with things like GIFs or video files
However, if they are referenced outside the show directory, then it wont be able to automagically update the sequence.

This is why the (older) advice for importing sequences (before zips were a thing) - was to switch to the show directory of the imported sequence, Open, Render and Save the sequence, then go back to your show directory to import it. The former process updating all the file references so the import worked correctly.
 
Yes, the advice that it will find stuff that moved is good and useful. I have currently taken the non-recommended path and committed to just leaving the media in one place (and the same place on the show computer, as everything gets copied from work in progress machine to dedicated show machine). Otherwise I might have to adjust each sequence to set the media file location again. All the other stuff comes from the .zip file, but the show machine doesn't really need it because I don't render there.
 
My first year this year and my show folder is 45.6gig

I've already got my Halloween 2023 & Christmas 2023 folders as I've had my layout for next year set since before Halloween this year.

Of that the backup folder is 18.3gig and I dare say the render cache folder is most of the remainder.

I store everything on OneDrive so the space isn't a big concern for me.
 
brando said:
I store everything on OneDrive so the space isn't a big concern for me.
Click to expand...
So do I - however - OneDrive is the primary reason I move the Render Cache and Backup OUT of the show folder. Otherwise every time you go and do something, it has to upload useless information.
Keep in mind, that if you use OneDrive you should set it to "Always keep on this device" - xLights is known to spit the dummy and cause issue if it can't load a file fast enough, which happens when it exists on the cloud but not locally, and needs to download it.
This then throws the storage argument out the window, as it will always consume the same amount of space locally as the cloud.
 
Cleaned mine just today to make a better backup.

Almost 30GB of import material... but that's audio and packaged sequences and copies of FPP images and models and notes and whatever else.
Show folder for Xmas is 11GB, which doesn't have many backups and such right now... 6GB is the .fseq files for about 2 hours of sequence. 4GB is imported media and superstar and the like, the remaining ~1GB is sequences, backup, layout xml files, etc...

I have a base show folder at 9GB, my Halloween folder at ~4GB, and last year's xmas at 6GB, so all in I have 60.7GB of xLights stuff. This seems not much given storage availability these days.
 
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