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version 14 and we still can't drag and drop folders?


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that can't be right. 

 

we're hanging by a thread onto retro6 day to day. i've had many attempts at using retro9 onwards but the biggest stumbling block, even in v14, is how one defines folders for backup. i want to be able to define individual job folders as backup sources then backup, for example, 40 folders at a time.

 

any suggestions?

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Define each job folder as a Favorite Folder, using the Add Favorite button in the List View Toolbar shown at the top of the list for the Sources category in the Console—see pages 35-36 in the Retrospect Mac 14 User's Guide.  You can then, when defining the Sources for a Script, click the disclosure triangle for the disk that contains one or more of these Favorite Folders and checkmark each Favorite Folder that you want the Script to backup.  If you have a Finder folder on the disk that contains nothing but particular job folders that you want backed up in a Script, you can define that parent Finder folder as a Favorite Folder and checkmark that Favorite Folder instead.  AFAIK there is no prohibition on defining Favorite Folders within other Favorite Folders; a Favorite Folder is merely a definition exclusively to Retrospect of a pseudo-volume.

 

Favorite Folders were known as Subvolumes through Retrospect Mac 6; they are still known by that term in Retrospect Windows.  You'll find a good explanation of Subvolumes on page 171 of the Retrospect Mac 6 User's Guide; that explanation was AFAICT unfortunately edited out in the Retrospect Mac 8 User's Guide (Retrospect Mac 7 was never released).

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thanks david, that's cleared things up a bit. it's still weird though that you can't shift click or lasso 20 folders and define them as favorites. i'll persevere.

 

 

I think you can do something closer to what you want using Tags, which are described on pages 39-41 of the Retrospect Mac 14 User's Guide.  You'd have to define each folder as a Favorite Folder, and then assign it a pre-defined Tag.  However that's more work than what maxhowarth wants to be able to do.  There are several references within that UG to something called a Smart Tag, but it's not defined anywhere—even in the Retrospect Windows UG.  On the pretext that he is seriously considering upgrading to Retrospect Mac 14, maxhowarth could contact Retrospect Sales and ask them to ask Retrospect Tech Support what a Smart Tag is.

 

IMHO it would require a fair amount of additional programming to have the facility maxhowarth wants, because it would require making multiple Finder folders part of the same Favorite Folder.  And all this, frankly, seems to be to compensate for lack of discipline in the job folder creation process in maxhowarth's installation.  All he has to do is to say to an individual job folder creator: "You know that job folder X you created?  Move that inside parent folder Y, which is a Favorite Folder I'm using to backup all job folders that fall into the same logical category as job folder X."  That shouldn't create too much trouble for the job folder creator, unless the logical categories maxhowarth uses for backup make absolutely no sense to the users who create job folders.

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 it would require making multiple Finder folders part of the same Favorite Folder.

 

actually david, that's not what i want. i want to be able to select multiple folders and make them all individual favourites.

 

but anyway, the 'lack of discipline' comment is valid and i appreciate it. this is what make forums (and users like you) so helpful. it takes another set of eyes to point out what is a great (and with hindsight such an incredibly obvious) change of workflow.

 

thank you.

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that can't be right. 

 

we're hanging by a thread onto retro6 day to day. i've had many attempts at using retro9 onwards but the biggest stumbling block, even in v14, is how one defines folders for backup. i want to be able to define individual job folders as backup sources then backup, for example, 40 folders at a time.

 

any suggestions?

 

First, if maxhowarth is actually using Retrospect Mac 6 to backup Sources on machines running OS X 10.10 Yosemite, that may be problematic.  I vaguely remember that, 2.25 years ago when I was considering upgrading from Retrospect Mac 6.1—which I hadn't been using for 5 years—to Retrospect Mac 12, I ran a timing test using an old G4 running Retrospect Mac 6.1 as the "backup server" and my relatively new MacBook Pro running OS X 10.10 as the client.  Along the way I was warned by someone in Retrospect Tech Support—probably Mayoff—that Retrospect Mac 6.1 would not thoroughly backup (including graphics) a client running OS X 10.10 even though IIRC I had installed a Retrospect Mac 12 Client on the MBP.

 

thanks david, that's cleared things up a bit. it's still weird though that you can't shift click or lasso 20 folders and define them as favorites. i'll persevere.

 

 

I think you can do something closer to what you want using Tags, which are described on pages 39-41 of the Retrospect Mac 14 User's Guide.  You'd have to define each folder as a Favorite Folder, and then assign it a pre-defined Tag.  However that's more work than what maxhowarth wants to be able to do.  There are several references within that UG to something called a Smart Tag, but it's not defined anywhere—even in the Retrospect Windows UG.  On the pretext that he is seriously considering upgrading to Retrospect Mac 14, maxhowarth could contact Retrospect Sales and ask them to ask Retrospect Tech Support what a Smart Tag is.

 

IMHO it would require a fair amount of additional programming to have the facility maxhowarth wants, because it would require making multiple Finder folders part of the same Favorite Folder.  And all this, frankly, seems to be to compensate for lack of discipline in the job folder creation process in maxhowarth's installation.  All he has to do is to say to an individual job folder creator: "You know that job folder X you created?  Move that inside parent folder Y, which is a Favorite Folder I'm using to backup all job folders that fall into the same logical category as job folder X."  That shouldn't create too much trouble for the job folder creator, unless the logical categories maxhowarth uses for backup make absolutely no sense to the users who create job folders.

 

Second, as far as Smart Tags are considered, maxhowarth can forget about them because there's no way he can define them—as I found out by doing a bit of Googling.  Smart Tags are "smart" because Retrospect itself is smart enough to predefine a few of them such as All Laptops.  However maxhowarth can define all the non-Smart Tags he needs via the procedure on pages 39-40 of the Retrospect Mac 14 User's Guide.  He can then attach any of those Tags to multiple Favorite Folders; I just tested that out.  After that, he can specify one or more of his Tags as a Source for a Backup script (I tested that out, too).

 

actually david, that's not what i want. i want to be able to select multiple folders and make them all individual favourites.

 

but anyway, the 'lack of discipline' comment is valid and i appreciate it. this is what make forums (and users like you) so helpful. it takes another set of eyes to point out what is a great (and with hindsight such an incredibly obvious) change of workflow.

 

thank you.

 

 

Third, shift-clicking or lassoing 20 folders would IMHO at most save about 3 seconds per folder, even if doing that would enable  maxhowarth to only specify the same Tag for those 20 Favorite Folders once instead of 20 times.  I'm sure the NHS (I assume from the way he spells "favourite" that maxhowarth is a Brit) would provide him treatment for an extremely fatigued index finger (insert appropriate smiley here) if Retrospect Inc. doesn't implement his desired enhancement.

 

Fourth, I probably shouldn't have used the term "lack of discipline".  I realize that changes of workflow are not always easily implemented in an organization.  After all, I worked for 40 years as an applications programmer—a job that is frequently as much applied political science as it is logic.  It sounds to me as if the "worker bees" in maxhowarth's organization have to create and populate a lot of job folders, and that they have their own procedures and management that may not include maxhowarth.  Moreover, telling a job folder creator to put a job folder inside a particular other folder may conflict with the natural folder hierarchy that job folder creators use in maxhowarth's organization; see especially the P.S. in this post about Windows Libraries, which seem to have been a Microsoft attempt to allow a user to define alternate folder hierarchies.  On second thought IMHO maxhowarth might be better off not asking the "worker bees" to change their procedure; he should bite the bullet and define multiple Favorite Folders with the same Tag instead.

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