Transcript

00:01 hey folks this is isaiah from your head
00:03 software
00:05 today we're going to be talking about
00:06 externals um
00:08 and uh
00:11 yeah there's been a little bit of
00:13 hubbub on the forum about externals and
00:16 how they can kind of
00:19 migrate from one project to another
00:22 sometimes without you looking
00:24 and
00:25 yeah tend to inflate the size of a
00:27 project especially if the externals have
00:30 lots of image data or maybe even other
00:33 externals inside of them
00:36 so today i'd like to do a little
00:38 demonstration to show you
00:41 how externals
00:43 can jump from one project to another uh
00:46 why they jump from one project to
00:48 another
00:49 and
00:50 lastly what you can do about it of
00:52 course that
00:55 that's the most important thing okay so
00:58 um
01:01 let me first uh show you what i have so
01:03 um
01:04 you can see
01:06 nothing on my sleeves so to speak
01:09 can see
01:09 what we're starting with as our project
01:12 here
01:13 i have a little test project called test
01:15 external
01:16 saved here
01:18 just on my desktop
01:20 and i've gone ahead and removed all of
01:23 the external files themselves so
01:27 there aren't any
01:28 outside externals externals can live as
01:31 part of the project or
01:34 actually as a file
01:37 and if they exist as a file that's a way
01:40 that you can share them with a colleague
01:42 or
01:43 move them one from one project to
01:45 another
01:46 but you can also just share the project
01:49 itself
01:50 the project itself contains
01:53 those externals like in this case i have
01:56 two externals here as part of this
01:58 project oops i double clicked
02:02 and
02:03 i also have some other externals
02:06 so there's five more externals in this
02:08 project
02:10 that we're not using right now
02:14 stacks doesn't remove them immediately
02:17 when you
02:18 stop using an external
02:21 it saves them until
02:23 you
02:24 take some manual action to
02:27 eliminate them from the file
02:29 and it does this just in case you need
02:31 to use them again
02:33 but also in cases like you delete and
02:36 then undo
02:38 so even if you delete save and then undo
02:44 that external will still go on living
02:46 even though you've
02:47 saved the project without it in it
02:51 so
02:52 yeah in that case stack saves it to sort
02:56 of a third place
02:58 that exists
02:59 in between all of the files
03:02 and i can show you how to eliminate
03:05 externals completely from your project
03:08 um if you want to do that too
03:11 so uh
03:12 first off though let's show you why
03:15 externals
03:17 jump from one project to another
03:19 okay so to do this demonstration i want
03:22 to start stacks in a way
03:25 that these externals have not loaded
03:27 into memory
03:29 and we'll do that by going to this third
03:31 page here it's a blog page
03:34 without any blog entries
03:36 so um just to keep it simple here i'm
03:39 going to uh save the project in this
03:42 state
03:43 so um it's saved on this blog page
03:46 and then i'm going to quit rapidweaver
03:49 entirely
03:51 i'm doing that so that um not only are
03:53 those stacks not loaded but
03:57 not only are those externals not loaded
03:59 but stacks isn't even loaded at all
04:03 okay so now i'm going to open up my
04:05 project
04:08 we're still on the blog page
04:10 and notice
04:12 we have not yet
04:14 loaded stacks at all so stacks
04:17 is kind of
04:19 it exists
04:20 as a plug-in but rapidweaver hasn't
04:23 activated it yet so it doesn't know
04:26 about externals it doesn't know the
04:28 universe exists at all
04:31 now we're going to
04:33 create a new project and i'm going to
04:35 basically uh
04:37 try to create something similar so we'll
04:40 start with a blog page an empty blog
04:42 page and i will save this um and we'll
04:45 just call it test
24:48 so there it is is in the finder
04:54 and
04:55 i'm going to copy over this no externals
04:57 page just going to drag and drop
05:00 so that made a copy and notice we made a
05:03 copy that data
05:05 migrated from one project to another
05:07 the stacks data from that page
05:10 and stacks never loaded
05:13 stacks never even had the chance to say
05:15 yes or no good or bad
05:18 i didn't get to watch that
05:21 that data migrate
05:23 it has no say in it whatsoever
05:26 it's part of
05:28 the rapidweaver
05:30 projects and
05:32 rapidweaver can move that data around
05:34 and even save it to a new project
05:36 without
05:37 ever loading stacks
05:41 into memory and
05:43 making stacks run as as a
05:46 a program itself
05:49 all right so i'm gonna save that project
05:52 and uh we won't say this one we'll just
05:54 leave that one as is
05:56 and we'll quit
05:57 okay so now i'm gonna open up this um
06:00 second project we created
06:03 so the question is did the stax data
06:06 migrate i hope so um
06:09 i haven't done this before so uh yeah it
06:12 should um so here we go
06:15 we click on the no externals page and we
06:18 have uh our stax data
06:20 with references to um well these are
06:23 just built-in ones but it could have
06:25 references even to third-party stacks
06:27 and that data will migrate whether
06:30 stacks likes it or not um rapidweaver
06:32 did all the work
06:34 and stacks just went along for the ride
06:38 but it looks like it worked um and
06:40 furthermore it didn't bring any
06:42 externals along with it so
06:45 the externals from that other project
06:47 didn't come along for the ride because
06:49 they exist only as that on that
06:51 externals page
06:53 this page which didn't have any
06:55 externals on it and never has um
06:58 it never acquired those externals so
07:01 when i migrated the data
07:04 it didn't come along
07:06 all right so i'm going to save it again
07:09 on this blog page quit
07:11 and
07:13 we're going to do the same experiment
07:15 again
07:16 this time with externals and hopefully
07:19 the externals will come along for the
07:20 ride okay so we're going to open up our
07:24 other page here
07:26 so
07:27 now we're going to duplicate the has
07:29 externals page
07:31 and
07:32 boom we'll put it right there
07:34 again i'm going to save this
07:38 and close it and not save this one
07:43 leave that one as is and quit okay so uh
07:48 we migrated that page um
07:51 again stacks
07:52 wasn't loaded at the time it doesn't
07:54 know whether that page migrated or not
07:58 but hopefully that externals data
08:01 exists as part of that page and came
08:03 along for the ride so here we go
08:07 it looks like we got what we wanted
08:10 our externals are here and here and even
08:14 uh the extras
08:16 that had existed as part of this page in
08:19 the past they came along for the ride
08:20 too
08:22 so stacks
08:24 is storing that data along with this
08:26 page
08:28 and when that page migrates
08:30 even though stacks wasn't even running
08:33 that data came along for the ride
08:36 now
08:38 in this case that was great that was
08:39 what we intended to happen um
08:43 but uh
08:46 you'll notice that there was a lot of
08:48 automatic behavior there
08:51 and
08:52 staxx is behaving very conservatively um
08:56 it has uh seven stacks of which you're
08:59 only using two right now
09:02 but because you copied the page that has
09:05 had those stacks in the past
09:08 the other five came along for the ride
09:10 too
09:12 in this case that's what we intended but
09:15 a lot of times
09:17 that happens and you didn't intend it
09:21 it can be a little bit difficult to get
09:23 rid of data
09:24 uh once it's there so
09:27 um i'm gonna try to do one more
09:29 demonstration here and again i haven't
09:32 done this so
09:33 um
09:34 i'm kind of winging it here i set these
09:36 projects up
09:37 hoping that they would work in this way
09:39 but um
09:41 not 100 certain that this is going to
09:43 happen because
09:44 there's a lot of complex automatic
09:46 behavior here and even for me the guy
09:48 that wrote it um i wrote it like
09:51 years ago
09:54 i'm not
09:55 100 certain i remember every last little
09:58 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"}]