0:01 hey folks this is isaiah from your head
0:03 software
0:05 today we're going to be talking about
0:06 externals um
0:08 and uh
0:11 yeah there's been a little bit of
0:13 hubbub on the forum about externals and
0:16 how they can kind of
0:19 migrate from one project to another
0:22 sometimes without you looking
0:24 and
0:25 yeah tend to inflate the size of a
0:27 project especially if the externals have
0:30 lots of image data or maybe even other
0:33 externals inside of them
0:36 so today i'd like to do a little
0:38 demonstration to show you
0:41 how externals
0:43 can jump from one project to another uh
0:46 why they jump from one project to
0:48 another
0:49 and
0:50 lastly what you can do about it of
0:52 course that
0:55 that's the most important thing okay so
0:58 um
1:01 let me first uh show you what i have so
1:03 um
1:04 you can see
1:06 nothing on my sleeves so to speak
1:09 can see
1:09 what we're starting with as our project
1:12 here
1:13 i have a little test project called test
1:15 external
1:16 saved here
1:18 just on my desktop
1:20 and i've gone ahead and removed all of
1:23 the external files themselves so
1:27 there aren't any
1:28 outside externals externals can live as
1:31 part of the project or
1:34 actually as a file
1:37 and if they exist as a file that's a way
1:40 that you can share them with a colleague
1:42 or
1:43 move them one from one project to
1:45 another
1:46 but you can also just share the project
1:49 itself
1:50 the project itself contains
1:53 those externals like in this case i have
1:56 two externals here as part of this
1:58 project oops i double clicked
2:02 and
2:03 i also have some other externals
2:06 so there's five more externals in this
2:08 project
2:10 that we're not using right now
2:14 stacks doesn't remove them immediately
2:17 when you
2:18 stop using an external
2:21 it saves them until
2:23 you
2:24 take some manual action to
2:27 eliminate them from the file
2:29 and it does this just in case you need
2:31 to use them again
2:33 but also in cases like you delete and
2:36 then undo
2:38 so even if you delete save and then undo
2:44 that external will still go on living
2:46 even though you've
2:47 saved the project without it in it
2:51 so
2:52 yeah in that case stack saves it to sort
2:56 of a third place
2:58 that exists
2:59 in between all of the files
3:02 and i can show you how to eliminate
3:05 externals completely from your project
3:08 um if you want to do that too
3:11 so uh
3:12 first off though let's show you why
3:15 externals
3:17 jump from one project to another
3:19 okay so to do this demonstration i want
3:22 to start stacks in a way
3:25 that these externals have not loaded
3:27 into memory
3:29 and we'll do that by going to this third
3:31 page here it's a blog page
3:34 without any blog entries
3:36 so um just to keep it simple here i'm
3:39 going to uh save the project in this
3:42 state
3:43 so um it's saved on this blog page
3:46 and then i'm going to quit rapidweaver
3:49 entirely
3:51 i'm doing that so that um not only are
3:53 those stacks not loaded but
3:57 not only are those externals not loaded
3:59 but stacks isn't even loaded at all
4:03 okay so now i'm going to open up my
4:05 project
4:08 we're still on the blog page
4:10 and notice
4:12 we have not yet
4:14 loaded stacks at all so stacks
4:17 is kind of
4:19 it exists
4:20 as a plug-in but rapidweaver hasn't
4:23 activated it yet so it doesn't know
4:26 about externals it doesn't know the
4:28 universe exists at all
4:31 now we're going to
4:33 create a new project and i'm going to
4:35 basically uh
4:37 try to create something similar so we'll
4:40 start with a blog page an empty blog
4:42 page and i will save this um and we'll
4:45 just call it test2
4:48 so there it is is in the finder
4:54 and
4:55 i'm going to copy over this no externals
4:57 page just going to drag and drop
5:00 so that made a copy and notice we made a
5:03 copy that data
5:05 migrated from one project to another
5:07 the stacks data from that page
5:10 and stacks never loaded
5:13 stacks never even had the chance to say
5:15 yes or no good or bad
5:18 i didn't get to watch that
5:21 that data migrate
5:23 it has no say in it whatsoever
5:26 it's part of
5:28 the rapidweaver
5:30 projects and
5:32 rapidweaver can move that data around
5:34 and even save it to a new project
5:36 without
5:37 ever loading stacks
5:41 into memory and
5:43 making stacks run as as a
5:46 a program itself
5:49 all right so i'm gonna save that project
5:52 and uh we won't say this one we'll just
5:54 leave that one as is
5:56 and we'll quit
5:57 okay so now i'm gonna open up this um
6:00 second project we created
6:03 so the question is did the stax data
6:06 migrate i hope so um
6:09 i haven't done this before so uh yeah it
6:12 should um so here we go
6:15 we click on the no externals page and we
6:18 have uh our stax data
6:20 with references to um well these are
6:23 just built-in ones but it could have
6:25 references even to third-party stacks
6:27 and that data will migrate whether
6:30 stacks likes it or not um rapidweaver
6:32 did all the work
6:34 and stacks just went along for the ride
6:38 but it looks like it worked um and
6:40 furthermore it didn't bring any
6:42 externals along with it so
6:45 the externals from that other project
6:47 didn't come along for the ride because
6:49 they exist only as that on that
6:51 externals page
6:53 this page which didn't have any
6:55 externals on it and never has um
6:58 it never acquired those externals so
7:01 when i migrated the data
7:04 it didn't come along
7:06 all right so i'm going to save it again
7:09 on this blog page quit
7:11 and
7:13 we're going to do the same experiment
7:15 again
7:16 this time with externals and hopefully
7:19 the externals will come along for the
7:20 ride okay so we're going to open up our
7:24 other page here
7:26 so
7:27 now we're going to duplicate the has
7:29 externals page
7:31 and
7:32 boom we'll put it right there
7:34 again i'm going to save this
7:38 and close it and not save this one
7:43 leave that one as is and quit okay so uh
7:48 we migrated that page um
7:51 again stacks
7:52 wasn't loaded at the time it doesn't
7:54 know whether that page migrated or not
7:58 but hopefully that externals data
8:01 exists as part of that page and came
8:03 along for the ride so here we go
8:07 it looks like we got what we wanted
8:10 our externals are here and here and even
8:14 uh the extras
8:16 that had existed as part of this page in
8:19 the past they came along for the ride
8:20 too
8:22 so stacks
8:24 is storing that data along with this
8:26 page
8:28 and when that page migrates
8:30 even though stacks wasn't even running
8:33 that data came along for the ride
8:36 now
8:38 in this case that was great that was
8:39 what we intended to happen um
8:43 but uh
8:46 you'll notice that there was a lot of
8:48 automatic behavior there
8:51 and
8:52 staxx is behaving very conservatively um
8:56 it has uh seven stacks of which you're
8:59 only using two right now
9:02 but because you copied the page that has
9:05 had those stacks in the past
9:08 the other five came along for the ride
9:10 too
9:12 in this case that's what we intended but
9:15 a lot of times
9:17 that happens and you didn't intend it
9:21 it can be a little bit difficult to get
9:23 rid of data
9:24 uh once it's there so
9:27 um i'm gonna try to do one more
9:29 demonstration here and again i haven't
9:32 done this so
9:33 um
9:34 i'm kind of winging it here i set these
9:36 projects up
9:37 hoping that they would work in this way
9:39 but um
9:41 not 100 certain that this is going to
9:43 happen because
9:44 there's a lot of complex automatic
9:46 behavior here and even for me the guy
9:48 that wrote it um i wrote it like
9:51 years ago
9:54 i'm not
9:55 100 certain i remember every last little
9:58 detail of when
10:00 stacks will decide to copy uh
10:03 data along
10:04 with a project and when it won't um
10:08 there's lots of little corner cases that
10:11 um
10:12 i tried to take care of um to make sure
10:14 that data never gets deleted uh
10:19 yeah and it can be difficult to exercise
10:21 them all
10:22 okay so
10:24 um
10:26 this time i'm going to open up this
10:27 project that has externals in it
10:31 and i'm also going to open up an empty
10:33 project
10:35 so this one has no externals it has
10:37 nothing in it in fact
10:40 um
10:42 but i'm going to do something with this
10:44 page with externals on it so i'm gonna
10:47 put an external here
10:49 maybe delete it
10:50 and
10:51 then i'm gonna come back to this page
10:53 and i'm gonna make a change
10:59 i thought that would have done it
11:02 maybe it did um i'm gonna save a copy of
11:05 that and we'll quit
11:08 like i said i might need to do this a
11:09 couple times um
11:12 it can be difficult to um
11:14 get it right yeah no i didn't i didn't
11:16 get it okay so let's try it in the other
11:19 order so i have the empty page here
11:22 and let's open up the one with externals
11:25 in it
11:27 yeah that did it
11:28 okay so now we'll make a change
11:33 and we'll save the project
11:36 quit
11:38 and i'll open up my theoretically empty
11:41 project
11:42 and notice i didn't purposefully
11:46 um
11:46 make any changes i didn't even touch an
11:49 external that time
11:51 but
11:52 because of the order that i loaded them
11:55 in and some other factors i'm sure
11:58 stax decided that the best thing
12:02 was just in case
12:05 to move the stacks to move the externals
12:07 also to this project
12:10 because something could have happened
12:11 behind its back when it wasn't looking
12:13 um
12:14 obviously
12:16 it shouldn't have happened in this case
12:18 there was only one page we didn't
12:20 actually do anything um stacks is
12:22 behaving over overly
12:25 overly conservatively
12:27 um
12:28 and uh
12:30 yeah the externals migrated to what
12:32 shouldn't
12:34 a project that shouldn't
12:35 have
12:36 them
12:38 so
12:39 if this happens
12:41 to your project it happens a lot of
12:43 times when people
12:46 view demo projects that come with stacks
12:49 or
12:50 some people have purchased a sort of a
12:53 template system from a developer who
12:55 sets everything up and they provide some
12:58 externals or maybe accidentally provide
13:00 some externals
13:02 and those externals have come in that
13:04 project and you open that up along with
13:07 uh your project file
13:10 maybe even just to have a look and
13:12 suddenly you've gained
13:14 25 megabytes of of external data
13:18 so how do you get rid of it so um
13:21 the first thing i'm going to tell you to
13:23 do is uh
13:25 start
13:27 by um quitting rapidly
13:29 so
13:31 once rapidweaver is open and stacks is
13:34 running
13:37 the stacks library sort of exists in
13:39 memory and it's not going to unload
13:42 until you quit rapidweaver
13:44 the stacks library kind of exists
13:46 between pages it's not part of one page
13:48 or another page and so it's just going
13:51 to hang out in memory until you quit so
13:55 the first thing to do is quit the second
13:56 thing to do
13:58 is
13:59 make sure your externals folder is empty
14:01 now
14:02 if there are externals that you're using
14:04 um
14:05 you'll want to make sure that you save a
14:07 copy of those too i don't want you to
14:09 actually lose data that you intend to
14:12 keep
14:13 so um but if you just want to get rid of
14:16 them all
14:17 um
14:18 yeah
14:19 nuke this folder
14:21 uh throw it all to the trash or or just
14:23 move it to a safe place um
14:26 now
14:27 let's open up our project that we would
14:29 like to
14:31 clean the externals from
14:36 so the second uh
14:38 part of this
14:40 process um after we've we've removed uh
14:44 all the externals
14:47 and
14:48 we've also um
14:50 you know quit and restarted rapidweaver
14:54 we've only opened
14:55 the project that we're focusing on we
14:58 haven't opened any other projects at all
15:02 and you notice we have those those uh
15:04 seven externals none of which we want
15:08 so we're gonna tell stacks now
15:10 to just get rid of them so we select
15:12 them all well we can just go to the
15:14 external area and select everything
15:17 there
15:18 and then i'm going to control click on
15:20 it um
15:22 you can also use you know that
15:25 gear bit button there but control click
15:27 works too um
15:30 or or right click
15:31 and
15:32 i'm going to say remove from library
15:36 and it will say
15:38 this will remove the parsers from the
15:39 library but not from your document so um
15:43 if
15:44 uh
15:45 if those externals exist
15:48 somewhere else in your document like on
15:50 another page
15:51 or
15:52 inside of a partial on another page i
15:55 mean they can be anywhere right um
15:57 stacks is going to save them there too
16:01 but if the only place they existed was
16:03 in the library there
16:05 and then that is the case here because
16:07 we only have this one page
16:10 then we're going to save the project
16:12 like this
16:15 and we'll quit
16:17 and now
16:18 hopefully those uh
16:20 those externals don't exist um
16:23 inside of that project they don't exist
16:26 in the finder
16:28 that should be it i i hope um
16:31 like i said i haven't done this demo so
16:34 uh
16:35 let's see let's see if um
16:38 it actually works
16:40 so um yeah it looks like uh
16:43 we got away with it um so
16:45 uh we have our same document um but this
16:49 time no externals
16:53 so uh what have we learned we've learned
16:55 um
16:56 number one that externals can jump from
16:59 one project to another if you have those
17:01 projects both open at the same time
17:04 especially
17:05 if you load a project that has a lot of
17:08 externals into it and you look at the
17:11 pages where those externals are used or
17:14 where they have been used in the past
17:17 then
17:18 once those externals are inside of the
17:21 library
17:23 they will they can migrate from one
17:25 project to another they they don't
17:27 always stacks
17:29 does it when it thinks um it should
17:33 but in some cases it's not even when
17:36 stax has loaded so that external data
17:40 can exist
17:43 inside of a page
17:45 and even just one rapidweaver is moving
17:47 that data around from one project to
17:50 another even without stacks running at
17:52 all
17:55 that project that data can
17:58 jump from one project to another or be
18:00 removed even um when stax isn't looking
18:04 so
18:05 for that reason stax behaves
18:08 very conservatively
18:10 and whenever it thinks
18:12 data might need to be in another project
18:17 it will save it as part of that project
18:19 too
18:23 now the last thing we we did was
18:27 we removed
18:28 the external data and we did that by
18:32 first
18:33 eliminating it from our document we're
18:34 not using these externals second we
18:38 uh emptied out our externals folder
18:43 and lastly we selected those files and
18:45 chose remove from library
18:47 so that removed them from all three
18:49 places they're not in the page
18:52 they're not in the finder
18:54 they're not in the library once you've
18:56 removed them from all three places you
18:58 save the project and that project will
19:00 be free of externals
19:04 all right so um
19:06 that is probably way more about
19:08 externals than you uh ever hope to learn
19:11 i hope everybody learns something
19:13 interesting um and uh
19:17 yeah until next time um
19:19 be sure to check out uh
19:22 our new version of stacks that comes out
19:24 soon um i don't know if you've noticed
19:26 it we were using it um during this whole
19:29 demo um we have a new stacks folder
19:33 and some really fun stuff
19:35 uh
19:37 like
19:39 new smart projects
19:41 that allow you to
19:43 um
19:45 customize how your uh
19:47 your library exists
19:50 along with some other
19:51 you know fun stuff
19:53 um that
19:54 maybe we haven't had in the past um
19:58 anyway uh
20:00 check that out and um
20:03 let me know what you think
20:05 i'll talk to you later"}]