ToyBase

Many people want to put their ToyBase data on a Network drive so that many people can use ToyBase at the same time.  This is now possible in version 7.0.95. The procedure for moving your data is described in this article and will probably need to be carried out by your I.T department.

Once completed, your setup will look like this:

You will have ToyBase installed as normal on your PC(s) and laptop(s). They will point to a folder on your network containing your database file and your images folder.

Each person will use a copy of ToyBase that is running on their computer.  The behaviour of ToyBase is unchanged:

• you cannot create two toys with the same number
• you cannot create two members with the same number
• you cannot book out the same toy to different members at the same time

There is one special case – ToyBase does not lock a Toy or Member record when you edit it. Therefore if two people on different computers attempt to edit the same record, whoever saves their changes last will win and their edit will remain. The edit of the first person to save will be lost without warning. I do not intend to change this behaviour in the short term unless there is a large demand for the change.

ToyBase 7.0.95 allows your I.T department to move the database file to a folder of their choice – perhaps to a network drive for backup or security purposes.  To do this you need to know about Windows Explorer, Windows paths, and INI files.

ToyBase will store its database file and stock images in the location of your choosing.  The location needs two sub-folders:

• data
• images

ToyBase will try and create these but depending on file permissions it would be safer if you make them.  For example if you have a network drive mapped to N: and you want to store the data in N:\ApplicationData\ToyBase then create these folders:

• N:\ApplicationData\ToyBase\data
• N:\ApplicationData\ToyBase\images

Once you have made the folders follow these steps:

1. Start ToyBase
2. Locate the folder where ToyBase currently stores its data (see this article for more information). The quickest way is the Tools…Backup menu and click the yellow folder next to the line ‘Your data is always stored in this folder’.  Or you can look in the Help…View log menu
3. Find the toybase.ini file in the config folder ‘…toybase.net\ToyBase\home\config’.  If this file does not exist just go to the Tools…Options menu and hit the [Save] button to create it
4. Close the ToyBase application
5. Open the toybase.ini file and locate the [System] section
6. Add a new line DataBasePath=
7. Write the path where you want ToyBase to store its data (e.g. N:\ApplicationData\ToyBase)
8. Save and close the toybase.ini file

The next time you start ToyBase it will create an empty database file in the folder you chose.  If the users already have data then you should copy the existing database file (which has the extension .abs and is named in the Tools…Backup menu) into your new folder.  You can also copy the existing images from the local c: drive (in the images subfolder of the path you discovered above) to your network drive.

Start ToyBase, choose Help…View Log and you should see an entry that ToyBase is using your new folder. Have a look at the Toys…View menu to see that ToyBase has found the old records and their pictures.