Jump to content

Daminion in Parallels - Drag & Drop to Adobe InDesign?


moorecokhodge

Recommended Posts

I'm hoping someone else running Daminion on a Mac may have some insight...

 

We have a fairly recent Mac desktop running Yosemite. We've installed Parallels Desktop 10 with Daminion setup on a Windows 7 virtual machine. Daminion runs well inside the virtual machine and we have no issues with searching or tagging.

 

However, when we try to Drag & Drop from Daminion onto, say, Adobe InDesign CC 2014, the file is just copied to the Mac desktop instead of being used as an image in InDesign. The expected behavior is that InDesign would see the dropped file as a file link and would insert it into the document. It works this way on 100% Mac environment or on 100% Windows environment.

 

I do understand that this may be an issue unrelated to Daminion, but after many other troubleshooting steps, I figured I would ask here.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can you drag files from Windows Explorer to the MacOS InDesign without making a copy?

 

We use the standard Windows drag&drop mechanics here, so this should be related to how the Parallels works. I don't know whether it can be configured via the Parallels settings, but probably you can get more info their forum: http://forum.parallels.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After doing a lot of testing, I've narrowed down the issue.

 

Let's say I have a network Windows server called \\Graphics with a share called ShareName.

 

On my Mac desktop, I have a mounted Volume for the server named "Graphics". It points at URL SMB://Graphics/ShareName (Samba network share protocol, I believe).

 

In the Windows 7 VM I run through Parallels, I can access this network share under either of the following:

//Graphics/ShareName

//PSF/Host/Volumes/Graphics/ShareName (this is a Parallels Shared Folder in the Windows VM that allows mirrored access to mounted volumes on the Mac host machine)

 

If I click and drag a file from Windows explorer //Graphics/ShareName onto Mac InDesign, it will not open.

If I click and drag a file from Windows explorer //PSF/Host/Volumes/Graphics/ShareName onto Mac InDesign, it will open correctly.

 

My Daminion server installation keeps its files at //Graphics/ShareName/Daminion-Images

 

When I right click a file in Daminion on the VM and go to "Find in Explorer" it opens a Windows explorer at location //Graphics/ShareName.

 

Is there any way for me to configure just some of my Daminion clients to use an alternate location for the Daminion image folder?

 

If "Find in Explorer" in Daminion pulled up an Explorer window showing //PSF/Host/Volumes/Graphics/ShareName/FilePath/File.jpg instead of //Graphics/ShareName, that should solve my problem. It would be even better if the drag & drop from Daminion used that same URL, but the "Find in Explorer" would at least get us working.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just as an update to this in case you want to make an update in the future.

 

As Macs (apparently?) cannot use "standard" Windows UNC paths, any "click and drag" out of Daminion Server in Parallels for Mac will not work.

 

Rather than using //DaminionServer/Share/ImagesFolder/File.psd as the file pointer when doing a "drag and drop" out of Daminion Server, it would need reference the built-in Parallels shared folder structure for the same //DaminionServer.

 

Depending on what the //DaminionServer/ mounted drive is named in the Mac OS, it would need to be something like //PSF/Host/Volumes/DaminionServer/ImagesFolder/File.psd.

 

Is this a failing of Parallels? Yes. But I figured I'd mention in case it's an easy enough thing to update in Daminion. It would greatly help all of our Mac-based designers and I'm sure others.

 

FYI!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kollin, thanks for the suggestion and your posts. Did you try the Parallels Tools?

 

I don't know whether this is a workable solution as we are on the Windows, but you can try it.

 

Another 2 workarounds:

1.

a. Please save this bat file somewhere in your Parallels Windows.

b. Right click on a file in the Daminion Client that is installed on this Parallels Windows.

c. Open With > Define External Tools...

d. Press the "Add" button and locate the saved .bat file on the step a. And click the "Ok" button

e. Rename "OpenInExplorerExt.bat" to "Open in Explorer (for Mac)"

 

Now if you'll right click on the //DaminionServer/Share/ImagesFolder/File.psd in your Daminion Client and run "Open With > Open in Explorer (for Mac)" then the "//PSF/Host/Volumes/DaminionServer/ImagesFolder/" folder will be opened in the Windows Explorer and the "File.psd" file will be highlighted.

 

 

2. Writing a simple addon that will be added into your menu. But this is required some basic programming skills (C#)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks so much for your help Murat! The batch file looks like it will work well. I'm doing a little bit of modification/improvement, but that got me started on the right path! I didn't know about the "define external tools" option, either, so that opens up a lot of other options as well.

 

For anyone else that finds this information, please be aware that the current version of Daminion appears to only support .exe files as external tools. If you would like to use Murat's batch file, I believe you will first need to convert it into an executable. You can use the free site located at http://www.f2ko.de/programs.php?lang=en&pid=ob2e for this conversion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad that it works. You can use the PowerShell instead of the Batch (.bat) files if you need for example to copy the modified file path to the Clipboard. But it works for the Windows started from the 7 version only.

 

 

For anyone else that finds this information, please be aware that the current version of Daminion appears to only support .exe files as external tools. If you would like to use Murat's batch file, I believe you will first need to convert it into an executable. You can use the free site located at http://www.f2ko.de/programs.php?lang=en&pid=ob2e for this conversion.

 

You can either add .bat files without conversion to the .exe if you'll type in the *.bat in the Filename option of the below dialog, and press the Enter key:

 

2014-12-09_195134.jpg

 

 

After that you can locate the .bat files there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...