To accomplish its 'pointing' magic, Pathagoras stores the various pointers in a local files that can be quickly accessed. But if you use cloud storage (OneDrive, GoogleDocs or Dropbox), and want to share your pointer assignments via Mirroring, one additional step must be added.
Here is the reason why: If you use cloud storage, the address to your cloud storage folder may be something like 'C:\users\Alex\Dropbox\Pathagoras documents'. But that same location on our officemate's computer is probably something like 'C\:users\Ryan\Dropbox\PathagorasDocuments' (the name immediately after 'c:\Users' is different). In such cases, the pointers that are stored in the Mirror folder will not work.They intend to point to the same place, but user name messes things up.
Not to worry. Pathagoras has got you covered. Just assign a 'parent path' to one of the three keywords that Pathagoras recognizes as a shortcut to three of the main cloud storage devices, OneDrive, Dropbox and GoogleDrive. This association is easily created with Pathagoras tools. The association is stored locally with your other Pathagoras settings, and automatically convert pointers that are saved in the Mirror folder using the keyword into the actual cloud storage path. (Conversely, as uploads or pointers are made to the Mirror folder, Pathagoras will convert your actual path into the keyword.)
The shorthand characters take the place of the extended path to reference the cloud storage folder, but when those characters are seen during any document assembly process, they will be extended to reflect the personal storage location.
These are the keyword that Pathagoras recognized:
[DBP] (DropBox Parent)
[ODP] (OneDrive Parent)
[GDP] (Google Drive Parent)
Setup:
To set your parent pointer, (1) click Pathagoras Features | Utilities & Settings | Network. (2) Click the 'Parent' Path Settings tab. (3) In the field at the right, type (or navigate to using the '...' button) the initial part of the local path to your cloud storage folder up the level you want to 'shortcut.' (Typically that will be the folder that ends with 'Dropbox' or 'OneDrive' or 'GoogleDrive' as in the examples below. That offers the most flexibility.) 'Press Save.
From now own, When creating and saving references to your Dropbox, etc. folder, Pathagoras will automatically replace c:\users\myname\Dropbox' with [DBP] (or [ODP] or [GDP], as appropriate. When Pathagoras encounters a shortcut in an address on any prepared computer, it will expand (internally -- you won't typically see it) the shortcut characters into the extended parent path. In this way, a document is always called via your personal path.
The shortcut names DBP, ODP and GDP are arbitrary. The feature itself will work for all cloud storage tools. So if you want to use [GDP] for NetDocs storage, go for it. But doing so may be confusing to end users. Just make sure that you and your co-workers are using the same parent path shortcut designator to assure that the shortcuts are compatible and that each computer point to the same destination folder.
As hopefully is obviouls, the process of pairing the 'personal parent' with the shorthand characters must be accomplish on each licensed computer that will be sharing documents through Dropbox, OneDrive, or GoogleDrive.