Um.. Call me a newb, but how does one replace the alias with a UNIX soft link (ln -s)?

[ Reply to This | # ]

I also have no idea what this means or how to do it. Could someone explain?

[ Reply to This | # ]

For "CLI-impaired" ones :), here 's the procedure :

• Open Terminal;
• Type cd ~/Movies and the enter key; this will teleport you to your Movies folder.
• Now type ln -s and a space;
• from Finder, drag the icon of your movie project file to your Terminal window; this will type for you the full path to your project file (easier than typing it by hand);
• hit enter: voilà! your soft link is ready.

Hope this helps.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Well,

You could also just create 'iMovie Events' and 'iMovie Projects' folders in the Root of the drive, and iMovie will automatic see the content when the drive is connected.

Actually, when you capture and/or create new projects, it will allow you to save the content on the other drives, automaticly creating the iMovie folders...

---
/Marook

[ Reply to This | # ]

Not to be too pedantic, but for those who might consider using this 'fix' elsewhere, the UN*X "ln -s" actually creates what is referred to as "symbolic link" rather than 'soft link'. Conceptually, I would think an alias would be more of a 'soft link', whereas I've always considered symbolic links to be "hard', in that the system actually believes the link to be the actual file/folder.

Later on, when you want to change things around, there will be a big difference between removing an alias to a file and removing a symbolically linked file.

[ Reply to This | # ]

While you're right about the "symbolic" term against "soft" (ln -s creates a symbolic link), you're wrong considering symbolic links as "hard". UNIX _has_ hard links (just use the ln command without the -s option).

From ln man page:
"A hard link to a file is indistinguishable from the original directory entry; any changes to a file are effectively independent of the name used to reference the file. Hard links may not normally refer to directories and may not span file systems.
A symbolic link contains the name of the file to which it is linked. The referenced file is used when an open operation is performed on the link. A stat(2) on a symbolic link will return the linked-to file; symbolic links may span file systems and may refer to directories."

Symbolic links can point to a file/folder with a relative or absolute path.
Deleting a symlink (symbolic link) will simply delete it, not the file it is pointing to; if you delete the original file, the symlink will point to nowhere.
Deleting a file that a hard link points to will not delete the file and the hard link will still be valid; the file will be deleted only when all the hard links will be deleted too.
Put simply, every filename you see in your folders is actually a hard link; using ln you make another hard link to it. Time Machine uses hard links for all unchanged files whem it takes a snapshot of your drive.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I agree about the 'iMovie Projects' in the root folder but not subscribing to a Windows world I always prefer to run the file system and would rather my software looked where it was told. The concept keeps me away from iPhoto as well.

As for the 'ln -s' - I don't understand your concern about removing it, provided the '-s' was added you can just drag it to the Trash.

---
iMac G5

[ Reply to This | # ]

I have been using this method for some time. The added bonus with this tip is that you can use the same technique to access video footage stored on AFP shares.

In my case I have a G4 'server' that has a 'Video' AFP share which is created using SharePoints. I have set-up my client machine (Mac mini) to mount this share at start-up. The iMovie Events folder simply contains a set of symlinks to the various project folders that I have created on the 'Video' share.

Incidentally, there is a useful Contextual Menu plug-in called 'Make Symlink' which makes the creation of symlinks a breeze in the Finder.

So far I have not come across any significant issues with this arrangement but from a performance angle it probably also helps that I have a Gigabit switch handling the data transfers.

The only thing you need to watch is the owners & permissions of files and folders that are created on the share to ensure that everything is writable from the client side. This could be better managed if I were running OS X Server but I have not got time to delve into that at present!


[ Reply to This | # ]