I’ve been working on an update to RefreshFM for a while now and one my my todo items has been to sort out a way to include external storage in the import process. Imagine my surprise a few weeks ago, when my testing showed that not only did my idea for an import method work, but that you didn’t end up with duplicate files.
When you have an good idea, you are always hopeful it will work, but I genuinely thought it would duplicate the external files. I wasn’t looking for any other results, so when it didn’t duplicate the files, I was very much surprised.
So I duly sent out some updates via the newsletter, in time for people to sign up for the FM Product Conference. In the mean time I kept working on the rough edges on the new changes to RefreshFM for 3.0.
And finally with a new beta ready to release to the public, I went back over my External Storage setup, and to my horror, it was now duplicating files. After much fiddling, testing, adjusting, tweaking and frustration, I can only conclude that the initial result I saw of non-duplicated files was a mirage. A tantalising, exciting mirage, but a mirage nonetheless.
So, to everyone who’s hopes I mistakenly raised about imports without duplication, my sincere apologies.
No matter how much I try, I can’t repeat the setup I had. In all of my testing since, I am unable to import without duplicates. I won’t leave this unresolved and will continue to try to find a method that works and that doesn’t require duplication, but I suspect that this may be something out of the control of the developers, and something that requires an internal FMP change.
To everyone who is still keen to look at an import method that includes External Storage, but requires duplication of the external files, we have a download now available of the public beta of RefreshFM 3.0b3 for Mac only. The documentation is the next thing for me to work on, but if you’re familiar with 2.0, then 3.0 will be a fairly simple update.
There are just a couple of things left to do before the final :
- Complete the Windows Automation.
- Finalise the new user UI.
We have a plan in place and code started on the Windows automation, so it will be very exciting to have this aspect of the process cross platform. And we have some great ideas about a new UI for end users for the distribution version, which I’m excited about putting into place.
Most of all, if you’ve ever tried RefreshFM before and not quite understood what it needs to “setup” then this will be the release for you. Our automated setup process ( Mac only until the next beta ) is awesome. If I do say so myself.