Set up CDFinder to share the catalog database in the network

CDFinder stores its catalog database files inside any specified database folder, so you can simply use a network server to host that folder to share your catalogs among multiple users in your workgroup.

CDFinder in a network schema



As the separate tool CDWinder for Windows uses the very same data format as CDFinder, you can even share your data across platforms this way (on both Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows)!

See a video tutorial about this!

Set up CDFinder for network use in three easy steps:

1. Create a new folder on a server volume. Name it "CDFinder Catalogs" or something similar. Make sure that this folder can be accessed by all computers which will run CDFinder or CDWinder.

2. Install and configure CDFinder on every machine. Please make sure you have enough licenses for CDFinder, as the networking feature will only work if you have a suffient number of licenses.

3. Tell every CDFinder copy to use the "CDFinder Catalogs" folder on the server as the database folder. Use the CDFinder Preferences for that:

CDFinder networking settings

Click on the "Change" button, and select the folder you have created in step one.

Now repeat this very same procedure on every Mac you want to use (and you have CDFinder licenses for!).

But wait, there is a trick to speed things up! After you have installed the first CDFinder, you can just copy the application folder to the next Mac, as well as the file named "CDFinder Preferences". That file contains all settings that you have just made, and also the location of the catalog data folder, and even your registration code.



That's it! Now that was simple.


There are a few extra things to be considered:



This really requires a Business License for CDFinder! You must have once license for every Macintosh in the network you want to run CDFinder on. It makes no difference if you actually store the CDFinder application on your file server...

Make sure that both platforms can access the catalog data folder. Most current servers will allow that.

It doesn't matter which computer platform the server uses, as long as both Mac and Windows can access the catalog data folder.

If you do not wish that every user in the network may change the catalogs in the data folder, just use the access privileges that your server provides! Allow only one or a few administrators write access to the catalog data folder and its subfolders, while everyone else just has read access. CDFinder will honor these access rights and handle accordingly.

As Windows does not allow for some special characters in the names of files and folders, CDFinder will not use some of them when it comes to naming catalogs. The "/" char is not allowed, a "." at the end of a name, and generally blanks at the end of names, too. For catalog files, that is no big deal, as the catalog file name can be different from the actual name that you see in the CDFinder windows. But that same limitation is true for catalog data folder names, and in that case there is only one name...

As CDWinder for Windows and CDFinder for Macintosh are developed and sold by two different companies, it is necessary to obtain licenses for the two applications separately.

Please contact:

* sales@cdfinder.de about licensing CDFinder for Macintosh (or look here)
* sales@cdwinder.de about licensing CDWinder for Windows (or look here)