Relinking files

I’ve done some rearranging of files in Finder and this means that some file links in DTPro are missing, i.e. the file cannot be found. How do I go about relinking the files? I’ve looked around and can’t seem to locate how to do this. I do not want to have to delete the DTPro file and then re-add from the Finder. Seems there should be a way to do this.

Thanks

There is not a way to relink files whose paths have been broken.

Thanks.

Bummer, though. Seems there should be a way to do that, but I’m not savvy about such things.

I’ve 4350 “File missing:” entries in my database as I had to move the files to a different hard drive because of drive space getting low.

Is there really no way of relinking those files to the entries in the DTPro database? I tried editing the file path in the Info panel, but that is not possible. Essentially, I’d just have to replace the registered file path prefix with a different one (pointing to the new location).

To me, this is a vital function (I have to refactor storage hierarchies in my SW development projects from time to time), and I’ve been bitten by this several times now. Is there any chance a (scriptable???) re-link function could be added to DTP? Is there a technical reason why this would not work, or is it merely a function just not implemented?

Thanks,
Christian

I cannot address the technical feasibility, but the standard practice for this is to move your document into the database (temporarily). Create a new parent folder in the new destination volume, Index that new parent. Move the now-internal group and document hierarchy to be a child group of the indexed parent folder. Then use “Move to External Folder” on that hierarchy, which will move all the folders and documents from your database into the destination volume – and they will be successfully indexed.

Be aware – if you index files on a an attached volume you will always encounter the chance that those indexed files will become “missing” if the volume becomes unmounted for some reason.

Were the indexed items located on the startup volume or an external volume before moving them to the new volume? In the first case you could create aliases/symbol links at the original location, in the second case it should be sufficient to name the new volume like the old one.

They were on a local volume (though not the startup volume). Since both the old and new volumes are attached to the system at the same time, naming both identically is not an option.

An idea might be to use a procedure that uses your alias idea in conjunction with the nifty idea by korm (thanks for that!) to relink the files. I’ll give it a try, but still: It’s a hassle… :neutral_face:

– Christian

Another possibility might be to rename the old volume so that the new volume could use the old name.