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nintenjo
Known Participant
August 18, 2018
Question

Linked Smart Objects (OSX vs. Windows)

  • August 18, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 410 views

We use Linked Smart objects a lot in our development pipeline it seems to be a fantastic tool that has long since been missing in PS.

We use various 'Source Control' software to manage and share our documents across the entire company but we also allow staff to use either Windows or OSX platform depending on their personal preference. All our Windows staff share the same identical Source Control folder where we keep the PSD files..  ie. (P:\Source Control\<Project Name>\PSD\)

However when ever a Windows user opens a file that was last saved on OSX (or visa versa) they see all  the 'Linked Smart Objects' has become broken paths, and they must re-link every object which can take a while especially with some documents containing 50+ linked assets.

Am i missing something? But why is Photoshop using a 'Full Path' to store these links rather than a relative path? If Photoshop was using a relative path to the parent PSD when storing the file links they would happily work on either OS platform?

Is this the case or is there something else in our pipeline or setup that is causing the links to break? (As it seems like a fairly obvious bug?)

Is there a work around where we can map our OSX and PC workstations to have a common working folder that would remove the problem and be compatible with Adobes strange decision to map directories?

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    2 replies

    Theresa J
    Community Expert
    Theresa JCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 19, 2018

    I’m pretty sure this has to do with the way the OS maps the hard drive. For example Windows assigns all drives a letter, and it may even change the letters when drives are added and removed. Mac OS does not require the letter system. Check how the network drive is named on each system. If they are different, than this is what causes the problem. If your IT can figure out how to make the drive names the same, it may fix the problem. I’m not a network specialist so I can’t help you figure that part out.

    JJMack
    Community Expert
    JJMackCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2018

    It may be file system related.  Mac and Windows use different OS and different file system.    How exactly are Windows user and  mac user sharing  files.  I also do not believe Adobe officially supports network files or remote file sharing.   Perhaps  using something like samba will help.  I do not know if samba is still available these days. I retired in 2002...

    JJMack
    N
    nintenjoAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 20, 2018

    So we don't store files on a network location (as you mentioned this wouldn't work and also wouldn't give us any revision control).. They are stored locally on their own PC's. We use Perforce to sync the file changes with each machine (those file changes being stored are distributed by a Perforce server).

    This way as far as Photoshop is concerned all the files are just local on a users machine. I appreciate both OS's use there own file systems but as far as file location is concerned it is only relative to the PSD itself..

    ie. ...\My Project\test.PSD is the same on both platforms as the PSD is only interested in folder hierarchy not the root. Unless of course you stored PSD's outside of a common root (which we dont).

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