InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by Robert948521 on 2021/01/27 03:25

Greetings from Germany!

As a passionate ECCO Pro/ECCO Extension user I'm observing the progress of InfoQube for several years (thanks, Pierre!) and am again about to switch over to IQ. At least I managed to transfer all my ECCO data smoothly to IQ.

My current setting ist:

EE with the master file on the PC in the office,
a replica stored on my notebook for mobile working (offline!),
daily synchronization between these two files using an update file (*.emf) transferred via a private online storage (mapped via webDAV),
daily synchronization of events between the master file and the local calendar of my Android mobile phone (using the great app MyPhoneExplorer).

So far, I could not find a workaround for re-creating this setting in the IQ world and would appreciate tipps from this forum!

I have to mention that I'm averse against Google and Dropbox and prefer to keep my data stored confidentially in Europe.

Additional question:

ECCO offers the possibilty to archive older data to a separate file and compact the master file. Is there a similar functionality in IQ?

Robert

Comments

See http://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/3066 :

"The synchronization typically uses a sync service, such as Dropbox (though a LAN / WAN setup will work too)."

You could specify a LAN/WAN location as your Sync Folder. (Tools > Options > Database > Data storage > Enable Dropbox-like Sync > Sync folder, aka option 2.4.7.2)

When there is a data change to a IQ database (e.g. on your laptop), IQ will copy the database to this Sync Folder. Your other PCs (e.g. your office PC) will monitor this folder for an updated version of the database, and when it detects an updated version in the sync folder, you will be prompted to copy the updated version over the version on your office PC.

Does this help?

I'll let someone else address the archive/compact question, since I haven't looked for that function.

Jim, thanks a lot for pointing me to the matching source in the user manual.

If I understand your description in the example correctly, not only the changes will not be exchanged, but the complete databases will be "transported".

So ... what happens if changes are made "offline" on both the PC and the notebook between synchronizations? Copying the entire IQBase would overwrite the changes on one side with outdated data.

Hi Robert,

In IQ the entire file is overwritten with the file in the sync folder - if the file in the data in the sync folder has a "last edit date" later than your data file (as displayed in File > Properties).

The IQ sync process relies on a common sync folder used by both computers. If the sync folder is in Dropbox or a similar syncing service, Dropbox itself will detect whether there have been changes to both files since the last sync, and it will create two versions of the file (one with the word "conflicted" in the file name). So in that case the changes wouldn't be overwritten, but you'd have to reconcile the changes manually.

Now if you aren't using Dropbox or a similar service, but rather using a common LAN or WAN file folder, then IQ could overwrite changes you've made on one of the computers - the file with the latest data change date would prevail.

The risk of this happening in most cases shouldn't be very high - it shouldn't be very difficult to figure out a way to make sure that changes on Computer A are synced to Computer B before making any new data changes on Computer B.

I hope this helps! I would appreciate corrections if I got any of this wrong!

jim

I was also an Ecco user for a long time and the sync mechanism was great. I'd love it if IQ had a similar mechanism but IQ's mechanism has worked well for me. Although I have a great fear of losing info because of some kind of malfunction. I use OneDrive instead of Dropbox.

I had forgotten about the Ecco sync method that involved exporting Computer A changes to a "changes" file and then importing the changes from that file into Computer B. It worked well. I remember how Ecco would warn you if the changes file was getting too big and it would tell you to export the changes into your other replicas. After importing Computer A changes to Computer B, you'd then export changes from Computer B into a file and import them into Computer A. For people who don't want to put their data on Dropbox this would be a good system. I'm sure it would require some heavy duty programming though!

[quote=Robert948521]Additional question:

ECCO offers the possibilty to archive older data to a separate file and compact the master file. Is there a similar functionality in IQ?[/quote]

hi Robert,

Archive: no

Compact: yes (Menu: Tools >Manage Database >Compact)

Also:

"Compact on program close" is offered in Options

Thanks, Tom!

Robert

I'm using mostly one machine, but my file is synced (via Dropbox) to a second machine.

If there have been changes made:

when I open the file on the other machine, I get a prompt -- something along the lines of there is a more up-to-date version in your sync folder, do you want to replace/update. (You dont have to.)

See 1. Synchronization between computers using Dropbox (as Jim says, not just for Dropbox).

So you would always have to sync/update before working on the second copy.

Tom