Distributing a Smart Pix Database on CD/DVD

 

If you want recipients of your image CD's to be able to search the keywords and descriptions of the images, then you should ship Smart Pix and your database with the CD/DVD.  Users do not even need to install or register the software, just run it directly from the disk.

 

You can distribute Smart Pix Manager with a database and its associated images on disk, as long as you respect our license agreement and do not distribute a registered copy (without acquiring a license from Xequte Software).

 

Note: If you want to move files on your existing system to disk that are referenced by your database, read the Archiving to CD/DVD section instead.

 

 

Important points if you plan to deploy a Smart Pix database on CD/DVD:

 

1.  Use Relative Paths

 

Your CD drive may be E:\but what if you give your CD of images and a Smart Pix database to someone whose CD drive is F:\, he will soon complain that Smart Pix can't find the files!  What do you do?  Use relative paths!

 

Smart Pix allows you to use the % sign to signify the CD drive.

 

Here is the method.

 

i)   Change all of your paths to include the % symbol for what will be the CD drive letter.  This can be done automatically, here is a complete example.

 

ii)  Copy the images to your CD drive using the same folder paths as they appear on your hard drive

 

When you give your CD to someone Smart Pix will automatically set their wildcard value to the setting of their CD.

 

 

2.  Include Thumbnails

 

If you have sufficient space you should include thumbnails to make the display of files on the disk much quicker.  You can create database thumbnails for each file using the Thumbnail Builder.  To display the thumbnail builder, select File>Options, Database 2 tab and click the button 'Edit Thumbnails of the Current Database'

 

 

3. Optimize your database settings

 

Remember the database settings (i.e. all settings under the Database Settings tab in Options) cannot be changed once the database is on disk (unless they copy the database to their hard drive) so it is very important that you choose them wisely.  For example, if you have set a password then everyone who receives the CD will need to know the password.

 

These are the recommended settings:

 

Standard CD image collection:

 

Secure CD image collection:

 

 

3.  Smart Pix Manager installation or Run-time?

 

If you copy a run-time of Smart Pix Manager to the disk (i.e. copy all of the files from an installed version of Smart Pix Manager) then users will be able to run Smart Pix directly from the disk without installation.  Make sure you copy all files from the \Smart Pix Manager\ folder and place the default database in a sub-folder of the name \DB\

 

You can include a Smart Pix installation on the disk with your images, however you must include all files within the original installation and cannot include any username or registration key.  If you would like to include a fully registered version of Smart Pix on each disk please consult us for OEM discounted pricing.

 

Xequte provides a specialized installer that allows you to install both Smart Pix and a custom database.  You can download this from:

 

http://www.xequte.com/smartpix/plugins.html

 

If you have any questions please contact support@xequte.com.

 

 

 

Creating your CD/DVD

 

These are the steps for creating the CD:

 

1.  Copy all of the files in the Smart Pix directory to the top-level folder of your CD/DVD.

2.  Copy the database files you want to use to a \DB\ folder on your CD/DVD

3.  If you want Smart Pix to auto-run when you insert the CD, download the following file and copy it to the top-level folder of your CD/DVD:

 

http://www.xequte.com/support/smartpix/cd/autorun.inf

 

Important: Ensure you have used wildcards so that it works even if other people use a different drive letter for the CD/DVD