Dropbox Issues in Version 5

[Jenny Griffin, RMR CRR CCRR CRC]

There are several comments in the V5 thread regarding Dropbox.  I am new to Dropbox and totally clueless.  It might be helpful if we posted about all things Dropbox in this separate discussion area.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Great idea.  I set it up but haven't used it yet.  Will let you know when an issue comes up, which it inevitably will I'm sure.

[Laura Renke]

I'm with you, Jenny, totally clueless for now.  I'd like to use it for remote scoping.  I would love to have a step-by-step type thing about DropBox and Eclipse settings.  There's already a lot of information here, but for the uninitiated, it seems all over the place.

[Christy Fagan, CRR, RMR, CSR]

Go to https://www.dropbox.com/ and download Dropbox onto every computer you have that you want to be able to use Dropbox on.  Make sure will connect to the internet or the whole concept of Dropbox will not work.  The purpose of it is so that you work on a file on one computer, it automatically updates to Dropbox.  You walk over to the other computer and that same file is sitting in your Dropbox account as the latest version.  I've always used this for keeping all of my letters, envelopes, reporter worksheets, all things related to reporting in Dropbox in separate folders so that when one computer crashes, I have them all saved "in the cloud" and don't have to copy out to thumb drives or whatever and put them on the new computer.

BUT . . . I have recently figured out a way to tell Eclipse to look in your Dropbox folder for your files so that you no longer have to copy in/out your job you're working on, your main or job dictionary.  So as long as your computer can connect to the internet after you've worked on a job, or during, then your files will all be the current version when you go to put your Eclipse key in the desktop at home to edit.  Then when you make globals in either dictionary, they're being saved in your Dropbox folder instead of on that local hard drive/the current computer you're working on.

I have attached the latest PDF I made that I presented at Julie Samford's seminar yesterday.  The basic things you need to do first are download dropbox onto your computers, create two folders in Dropbox called Eclipse Jobs and Eclipse Dictionaries.  Then copy and paste your Block Files folder, or each block file separately, into the newly created Eclipse Jobs folder (if you use block files/includes).  Then you need to copy and paste all of your dictionaries into the Eclipse Dictionaries folder you just created.

Then you need to go into the User Settings/Advanced tab and redirect your Jobs and Blocks directories to your dropbox instead of C:\your hard drive.  The handout shows pics of all of this.

Then you need to tell Eclipse where your main and job dictionaries are located.

Then you go into User Settings/Programming tab and add a line for WAVREC that tells Eclipse to save your .wav file in Dropbox also so that it's accessible from whatever computer you're editing from. 

You now have automatic backups of all of your files in Eclipse (.ecl, .not, .wav and dictionaries.), but you are now able to open Eclipse on any computer and start working and it's always the current version of the file (as long as your computers were able to connect to the internet long enough to update.  You'll see Dropbox working and have a blue circle that shows you it's updatinged.  When you see the green checkmark, it's updated.  Doesn't take long at all, except for large .wav files, especially if you send them all over at once when you first set this up.)

But you DON'T have to be connected to the internet at a job or at home or anywhere else to access your Eclipse docs.  You just need that laptop or that desktop to eventually connect to the internet if you want those changes to update and reflect the latest version on all your computers.

Clear as mud?  The attachment goes into further explanation with pics to show you each step.  You can still access your old files through C:\Program Files\Advantage Software\EclipseNT\Users\Christy, etc. or whatever that old path used to be.  You can find it.  If nothing else, just do a search through Windows for your file name and it will show you where it's at if you can't find it through the Windows tree.  Because now when you open up Eclipse, it will show MyDropbox\Eclipse Jobs at the top intead of the old path.   But they're not gone.  They're still on the same hard drive they were always on; it's just that Eclipse is not looking there anymore because of the changes we've made.  You can always go back to the way it was.  Write down what they were before you make the changes so you can put everything back if you don't like this. 

[Christy Fagan, CRR, RMR, CSR]

(had to edit my last post because of typos and stuff, so you might get this post twice.  Sorry.)

[Laura Renke]

Wow, Christy, this is fantastic!  Thanks so much for sharing.

[Christy Fagan, CRR, RMR, CSR]

This isn't how you set up Dropbox to use a scopist scope a rush or daily, but you could share a Dropbox folder with a scopist and then you wouldn't have to send/transfer any files out of anything.  You wouldn't have to mess with intervals and all that, but they wouldn't be able to work on it while you're still there at the job, only after you're done with the job and the audio gets through synching.  And you would only want to share that main folder with someone you really trust because they're literally in your actual Eclipse jobs folder.

In the alternative, you could drag and drop/copy and paste which job you want them to work on into a different Dropbox folder you've shared with them.  That way you still have your original file and they are working on the job through a different folder and you'll still have the old and the new.  That would be the preferred method and makes for easier file transfer than messing with T3 or yousendit or a service like that to send large files.

But if you're wanting to set it up where your scopist can work on a rush or a daily while you're still there, that's a different setup with division intervals and I haven't ever figured out how to make my audio go over in intervals.  I think some have figured it out but I don't know all of their settings or I'd try it and then post what all needs to be changed.  I can get the transcript to go in 30-minue chunks but not the audio.  It waits and sends the whole thing at once at the end.  ???  I've tried several ways and can't get it to work.