I am currently starting a database of selected manufacturer libraries and several user defined products. This database of products will need to be accessable to anyone in the office who has StarDraw. I have made a standard template that would include the company title block and sheet layouts as per company standard and I was under the impression that when others would open this company template that the list of UDPS and manuf libraries would open with it, but from the few other computers I have tried the template on this doesn't seem to be the case. Could anyone please give me some insight on how I could go about making these libraries accessable by others (ideally they would automatically load when they open the template).

I believe our current config using Visio has all the products saved as a visio stensil template and we have those saved on to our internal server which is accessable to everyone. However, StarDRaw doesnt appear to allow me to save the manuf libraries that are applicable to us and the UDP's in this fashion so I am unsure how to go about making them accessible to others.

If someone could tell me how or where StarDraw does save these UDP's and selected manuf libs it might help me to figure out a way to make them accessable by others. Do the UDPs and selected manufs save on to each individual computer, within the StarDraw files on each computer, on to the USB activation key, into the drawing file or into an external file?

Thanks.

-Eric

Thank you for all your feedback.

I do think the best solution is for your UDP libraries to be automatically uploaded to the cloud and when you log on to another machine, for those UDPs to be synchronized down to that local machine.

So, for example, I can create a UDP on my work computer and then run Stardraw Design 7 on my laptop with a temporary internet connection and those UDPs are synchronized onto the laptop so that I can use them offline. I can also log on from my home computer and have those UDPs synchronized to that computer too.

In addition to this automatic synchronizing, you will have the ability to "share" your UDP libraries either with everyone or with specific users. Your UDP libraries will then appear on those users machines as "Online Libraries\Your User Name". Note that they are only available while you have an Internet connection and are not synchronized locally. You can add those UDPs to your project and copy and paste them within and across projects and even create your own UDPs based on someone elses UDPs, which are then synchronized to all your machines - as if you had created them yourself.

Another big advantage of this cloud service is that your UDPs are automatically backed up. If you lose your laptop or have to reformat your hard disk or your hard disk fails, then we will have kept an offsite backup for you. In fact, internally, we would have kept 6 copies of your data in 2 seperate geo-locations so your data will be super-safe.

However, this service will have to be charged for as we will incur costs to provide that service. To be honest, we don't know what the charge will be, but it will probably be a relatively low monthly fee for an unlimited number of UDPs and unlimited usage.

Does the proposed service give you what you need or is there something we have missed?

We would develop this service and enter a Beta program as quickly as possible providing free, unlimited access while the service was perfected. Once the service was completed, the monthly service fee would kick in.

What we would like to know is - is this something that you would pay for? If so, how much? What monthly fee is reasonable for a professionally supported, online service?

Here is one thing that I can promise: If there is a very positive response to a reasonable monthly service fee, then this will get a very high development priority.

David Snipp
Stardraw.com Ltd

David,

The cloud idea appears to have some useful benefits and may very well be a more automated solution. I have a few questions however before I can form a solid opinion on the idea.

Our needs would require a single main UDP library that everyone would have access to. This library would be the default library that has everything our employees would need to create a drawing. They would not require individually tailored libraries as most drawings produced here use the same product library so users would not need to modify the main database in the way you have described. The only typical updates to the main UDP library would be the few times a year when new products would be added, but these would be products that would be needed by all and not only a select few, hence it would be a main library update.

The ideal solution would allow an assigned "administrator" type user to edit the main UDP library in order to add the new UDP's. Each time our employees signed on to StarDraw it would push the new main library to their program where on the very rare occassion they could make temporary edits to the main library products in a fashion similar to using the unlock tool. The main library would also have a ability to be downloaded to users computers in preparation for offline access but would reset back to the main library once internet connection was once again established.

If this configuration could be achieved using your cloud UDP sharing idea it would be a service that would be very useful to us. With regards to supporting this as a paid service that is a topic our management to discuss once it can be determined that it will work for our purposes.

Thank you for your feedback David.

-Eric