Using 2 Computers?

I travel for extended periods of time. I use my laptop when I travel, and my iMac at home. I want to be able to create my RW sites on the iMac, and then edit if needed on the road using my MacBook Pro 15" Retina. How can I do this if my site files cannot be in the cloud?

I’ve never tried this but I don’t know why it wouldn’t be possible to store your project files in the Dropbox folder on your computer. Any project changes would then be carried over to the other computer the next time it connected to the internet as long as they are both synched to the same account. The only other option I suppose would be to back up changes with an external drive or a USB stick that could then be copied back. It doesn’t need to be that complicated.

You can store your project and other files in Dropbox, but the real challenge is to have the same version of RW, plugins and stacks on both Macs.

See this related post:

http://community.realmacsoftware.com/t/working-with-multiple-macs/154

I use ChronoSync to keep my MacBook Pro mirrored to my iMac for non-cloud apps and files, not everything though. I will try a ChronoSync setup to see if it works. I will test syncing the RW app and the RW files in my user folder. Can you think of any other RW associated files on my iMac that should get synced to my MacBook Pro?

Do not use Dropbox for your RapidWeaver files. These files will be destroyed. This is a known problem.
You only can use Dropbox, when your files are compressed.

I do see this warning in the RW FAQ:
http://help.realmacsoftware.com/hc/en-us/articles/202284561-RapidWeaver-and-Dropbox

I hope this gets improved in the future. We need to be able to work using multiple computers.

RapidWeaver is a single-user application, currently.
Perhaps, in the future …

Oscar,
My original question said I am a single user with two computers. I think the true limitation of RW is that it is a single computer application. I understand that limitation, but I also need to be able to make changes to my sites while I’m traveling with my laptop.

This is again and again a question in the forum: “How do I use RapidWeaver on two computers?”
Dropbox is not a good idea. USB sticks are the best solution.
But on both computers all plugins and themes must be installed and up to date.

Good. Then I think I will use ChronoSync for the project files as well. That should work. It’s not cloud based.

Yes, I use ChronoSync.

But can I - indeed should - I use Chronosync + thumb drive to keep all my Addons in the ~/Library/Containers directory hierarchy up in sync, please?

TIA!

Hi there! I have this setup too with Chronosync. I use this for years now and it works great! It syncs themes, plug-ins, sites, etc.

I use Chronosync to keep the two macs in sync completely. My master is the iMac, and the MBP is a duplicate. Works great!

@Oscar I use DropBox all of the time with my save project files and I have only ever had 1 destroyed and that was because of user error. My mistake was leaving the file open on 1 computer and then opening it on another computer. ALWAYS be sure that your computers are synced before opening a project file that is on Dropbox and you should be good to go!

@zeebe
Nice that it works for you.
Perhaps, there can be problems. Realmac himself describes it here.

I’ve tested the ChronoSync setup, and it seems to work fine. All I needed to do was apply my serial number to Stacks2 on my MacBook Pro. All my add-ons synced fine. I understand that this is a workaround that needs to be used with caution until the time that Realmac makes RW work in the cloud.

Bruce,

Thanks. But to be absolutely clear, please -

are you synching:

~/Library/Containers/com.realmacsoftware.rapidweaver6

or something lower in that folder, please?

I have two sync documents set up, and then I put them into one ChronoSync container file and I run that every morning. The first sync document syncs the app from my Applications folder. The second sync document syncs ~/Library/Containers/com.realmacsoftware.rapidweaver6/Data/Library/Application Support/Rapidweaver. I took a guess setting up that one, but it seems to work! And they’re not a syncs per say, they are set up Backup left to right (iMac to Macbook Pro).

Bruce,

Yes. Thanks. That’s exactly what I would do. And what I was thinking of.

Like the old RapidRestore plugin?

But is it safe?!

Mark,

I know nothing about an old RapidRestore plugin. You ask if it’s safe? I assume you mean is the ChronoSync setup safe. I would say it’s as safe as your Time Machine backup. Anything goes wrong, you revert to the last good backup.