Relative vs. absolute links

[Alison Craig]

I would agree, as when I send the files out – all on the same drive – everything works fine with relative paths.

But when they come back – still all on the same drive – they are returned with absolute paths.

That’s my dilemma. The relative positions of the files don’t change – but the paths become absolute anyway.

Note that while my version control database is on a network drive, all files are checked out to a local drive when they are being worked on, so there is no network issue, at least on my end.

Alison

From: Paul Wilbraham [mailto:paul.wilbraham at m-ais.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 10:30 AM
To: Alison Craig; 'framers at lists.frameusers.com'; Harvey, Peggy
Subject: RE: Relative vs. absolute links

Alison
We find that graphics on the same drive as the original files are relative. Graphics on a separate drive are absolute.

--Paul
On 27 February 2013 at 18:09 Alison Craig <Alison.Craig at ultrasonix.com<mailto:Alison.Craig at ultrasonix.com>> wrote:
I’d love to hear an explanation as I often have the same relative/absolute issue with graphics and xrefs when my files are returned from the translators.

Although in my case, everything is done in FM 9 or with the MIF 9 format – so my issue has nothing to do with Frame versioning.

Alison

PS: All FM files used to create the Book are in a single folder with graphics in a series of subfolders.

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Harvey, Peggy
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 7:41 AM
To: 'framers at lists.frameusers.com'
Subject: Relative vs. absolute links

Hi Framers,

FM 9 p 237 and FM 7 p576

Situation: Converting files between FM 7 and FM 9. All links and file references are relative when I start but appear to become absolute when I convert either way.

I need to share files with a coworker at another site. I have FM 9 and he has FM 7. The files, including the book file, are always all in a single directory with a “Graphics” subdirectory for all graphics.

Here’s the sequence of events:

1) The files were originally in FM 7. (When I inherited them, at least.) I put them on a network drive in that form, without converting them to FM 9.
2) My coworker edited the files, then put them back on the network drive so I could do some clean up work on them. I moved them to a different network drive to do the work.
3) I opened all of the files in FM 9, therefore converting them to FM 9 format. I did my cleanup, including fixing the graphics path to the “Graphics” subfolder and fixing cross-reference links that were broken. In retrospect I believe cross-references within the same file were okay but cross-references between files were all broken.
4) When I finished my work I saved each individual file and the book file in MIF 7.0 format. I saved the MIF files in a different folder than the FM 9 files and copied the “Graphics” directory to the same folder as the MIF files.
5) I opened each MIF file and the MIF book file in FM 7, then saved each one in .fm (or .book) format.
6) I noticed that the book file seemed to be referring to the the previous files – the FM 9 files with the same names in the different folder. I deleted all of the file references and added all of the FM 7 files that I’d just created. So the FM 7 book file and individual files were all in the same folder.
6) When I went to generate the book I got an error log that all of the cross-references I’d fixed in FM 9 were unresolved again. Upon further inspection I discovered all of the graphics had the wrong path, too – they were linked absolutely to the “Graphics” folder in my FM 9 folder, not to the relative “Graphics” folder I’d copied to the FM 7 folder.

My question: Why are the links and references to files (graphics and cross-references) changing from relative to absolute paths when I convert from one version to another? At least that’s what seems to be happening, either when I open FM 7 files directly in FM 9 or when I go through the MIF to convert from FM 9 back to FM 7. Anyone have any insight to this?

FYI: Our final solution is we’re STRONGLY recommending my coworker upgrade to FM 9 as soon as possible. I’m hoping he’ll be able to even though Adobe is on FM 11 now. I’ve seen the traffic on the list about FM 11; I have no desire to update to it at this time so I’m hoping he doesn’t have to, either.

Thanks,

Peggy


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