Request for a straightforward way to share likes/user colour collections under ‘My Favourites’ between different computers running Arturia products, following discussion in this thread: How to 'like' all the presets in a playlist??
I know there’s a workaround where settings files containing favourites can be copied from one computer to another, but it’s clunky and can lead to overwriting of favourites on the machine being copied to. Some way to export a list of likes/colour collections from one machine to another would be great.
Obviously some kind of cloud-based solution could be used to do this seamlessly for the user, but that does bring with it a lot of development/support as well as processing and storage overheads.
I think that would be a great idea, a cloud-backup for such user-tags. Or at least such a cloud-transfer function.
I currently use this DOS/BAT script to easily backup the “usertags” as they are called in the settings folder.
This script will copy them to YOUR desktop, no matter what your windows username is. And it will automatically zip them using WinRAR.
All you have to do now is to move that file, and unpack it in the right place on the other computer.
This is like a MASTER to SLAVE type script, or from MAIN-COMPUTER to BACKUP-COMPUTER script - a one-way-script, so not exactly what you want, but it might ease your day some.
This script only makes a copy of tags, and packs them in a zip file. It does NOT paste anything to any folders, overwrite anything, or move anything in folders. All your files will be left where they are now! It will only copy them and zip/pack them.
@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set "YOURDESKTOP=C:\Users\%username%\Desktop"
set "PRESETS=%ProgramData%\Arturia\Presets"
REM set "RAR=%ProgramFiles%\WinRAR\rar.exe"
set "ISRARHERE=C:\PROGRA~1\WinRAR\Rar.exe"
set "PARMS=a -ep2 -m1 -ma5 -qo+ -isnd"
set "ARCHIVE=%PRESETS%\user_tags.rar"
set /a x=0
for /f "tokens=*" %%s in ('dir /b /s /a:d "%PRESETS%\Shared"') do (
set "str=%%s"
if [!str:~-11!]==[Shared\Tags] (
set dirs[!x!]=%%s
set /a x+=1
)
)
set /a x-=1
if not defined dirs[0] goto:DONE
FOR /L %%n IN (0,1,%x%) DO (
"%ISRARHERE%" %PARMS% "%ARCHIVE%" "!dirs[%%n]!\*"
echo:
echo:
)
:DONE
copy %ARCHIVE% %YOURDESKTOP%
endlocal
echo:All done
timeout 10
pause>nul
(open notepad, paste code there, save as “backup-tags.bat”, and select all files --SEE IMAGE--)
Thanks so much alexdata, the script worked perfectly.
Running it made me realise a good way to manually synchronise likes between two machines, very possibly already obvious to others, but just in case anyone wants to give it a go…
I have two machines, a desktop where I work, and a laptop at home. On the desktop, I first ran alexdata’s backup script. Then opened Analog Lab and opened my ‘likes’, selected them and dragged them all into a colour tag - in my case Orange, which I renamed to ‘Desk2Laptop’.
Moving all of them in one go didn’t work, so I split it into smaller chunks and they picked up the tag OK. After closing Analog Lab, I copied the file C:\ProgramData\Arturia\Presets\Shared\Tags\Orange.json [paths to that file may vary on different computers] and put it on a cloud drive.
Then at home on the laptop I also ran alexdata’s backup script, then did the same as above, but using the green tag, renamed ‘Lap2Desktop’.
Then I copied the Orange.json from the desktop PC over the local one on the laptop, and ‘liked’ all the presets that were in the orange collection.
Then the same thing with the desktop computer, having replaced the Green.json file there. Then both machines have the same likes, without having to lose or overwrite any along the way.
