Cloud Sync between mac apps, PocketPedia on iPhone and on TV

[mdsol]

Hi.
I really miss on CDPedia a way to automatically sync my collection between the app, PocketPedia on my iPhone and PocketPedia on Apple TV.
Would you mind to consider adding any kind of cloud sync (eg. via Dropbox, or Google Drive, or iCloud)?
A multi-account sync would be very usefull!
Best regards, Francesco

[FineWine]

Welcome to the wonderful world of the Pedia's by Bruji.

This topic has been raised several times and whilst Conor is working on it, Apple keeps moving the goal posts somewhat and then they released Big Sur which is another ball game, though the Pedia's do work on Big Sur.

All the while writing for the next whole number release version 7, which will have a heap of new things; which may include full integration with iCloud. Whether he will actually use Apple iCloud, Drop Box or his own servers is a nice mystery. Other big changes might be better integration with the cataloguing of downloaded (locally stored); movies/TV series, ebooks, music & games and NAS based home networks.

Conor (Top Dog), his wife Nora (co-Top Dog) and their very young family (Top Puppies) are a 'one-man-band' and due to COVID-19 have gone through multiple lock-downs therefore everyone's plans and schedules have been thrown out the window.

[DanThe]

Thanks for the update FineWine.

I agree with you that there have been many posts about adding iCloud synching to the Bruji apps. It would be the needed bridge to extend the access to data to the other Apple ecosystem devices such as iPads and iPhones.

Yes. Not only is Big Sur a huge game changer but also the transition to Apple Silicon which has already started to unify OS programming or like it is commonly referred to as the iPadification of the Mac. It has created a lot of grief for the developers but the fact is that Intel hasn't been innovating since 2015 which has been holding Apple back when it comes to the Mac.

Intel has been promising 10 nm since 2015 but have only been able to deliver this now. That's why Macbook performance has suffered because Apple had been designing them with 10 nm thermals in mind but Intel failed to deliver this.

Glad to hear about version 7 but I am curious to know if it is being rebuilt from ground up to Apple's new UI standards.

Sorry for the long rant but I am very excited about this transition and it is definitely not the first one for Apple.

Cheers!

[BenRoimola]

I really miss on CDPedia a way to automatically sync my collection between the app, PocketPedia on my iPhone and PocketPedia on Apple TV.

I have synced the Pedias automatically between my Macs (desktop and laptop) and between user accounts on those Macs by having the Pedia databases on Dropbox. This does of course not help for automatic syncing between Macs and other Apple devices, but I thought I'd mention this in case you need to sync between Macs and/or user accounts on Macs.

[mdsol]

Thank you FineWine for explaining the situation, and thank you also BenRoimola to help me solve part of my issue with Dropbox!
I hope CDPedia 7 will include Dropbox sync out-of-the-box!
Have a nice day,
Francesco

[vjl]

I really miss on CDPedia a way to automatically sync my collection between the app, PocketPedia on my iPhone and PocketPedia on Apple TV.

I have synced the Pedias automatically between my Macs (desktop and laptop) and between user accounts on those Macs by having the Pedia databases on Dropbox. This does of course not help for automatic syncing between Macs and other Apple devices, but I thought I'd mention this in case you need to sync between Macs and/or user accounts on Macs.

For a while now, I have had my massive Bookpedia database file stored in Dropbox and it used to work well. Lately, it has caused me hours of extra work. I run an online bookstore and use Bookpedia as my inventory and sales database. Inventory is added in Location A, while sales are recorded in Location B. Location B always makes sure that me, in Location A, has fully quit Bookpedia before they, in Location B, run it to update an inventory item with sales data.

Once they exit the app, I am then clear to go back into it. But often, all of the data entry I have done that day is mostly gone. Dropbox has proven to not be a reliable location to put the Bookpedia database [my Location A Mac is running macOS 13, while Location B is running macOS 12].

I am thinking of migrating to iCloud Drive to store the database. Has anyone successfully been able to do this? If that does not work, then Location B will need to e.mail me sales info each time a sale happens so I can update Bookpedia locally in Location A, with the database hosted locally on my Mac Studio M2. I am hoping I don't need to take that step backwards, but the fact that Dropbox is letting me down when it used to work, is very troubling.

[DanThe]

Please note that this will work as long as you have enough iCloud storage space and as always make sure that you have a backup.

My databases have been in my Documents folder since around 2013 and that folder is now mirrored in iCloud.

At that time I did not want to use the default locations which are:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Bookpedia
• ~/Library/Application Support/CDpedia
• ~/Library/Application Support/DVDpedia

The main folder where I stored all the databases now is:

~/Documents/App Data/Bruji

The subfolders for the databases are:

• Book
• Movie
• Music

Once I had copied the contents of each default location to each of the above folders, I forced each Bruji Pedia app to use the new location by doing the following:

1. Launch the Pedia app while holding the Option key and this will open a menu.
2. Click the "Choose Database" button.
3. Browse to the new location and select the corresponding database file for the app. For example the one for Bookpedia would be "Database.bookpd".

After doing the above, the apps will use the new location moving forward. It isn't native iCloud database support but it has worked for me.

Hopefully you can successfully transition your files from Dropbox to the iCloud Documents folder.

[FineWine]

That is a great work-around. Thanks DanThe.