I recently moved (copied) an FP7 database containing over 6000 records of linked images off of an external drive and onto a hard drive so that I can serve it with FMS 7. I am hoping that the images can remain on the external drive.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might update those links so that the images work again? Or maybe I need to re-think the structure of this database all together? Or is it possible to serve the original copy right off of the external drive, bypassing the need to correct the links?

I guess this topic is relevant in the FMS 7 forum as well ...

You should be able to reference the images via a calculation field. This is a v7 feature, a calculation with a container result. Looks like:

image:/Part 1/Users/fej/Pictures/Canvas CD/after_rabbit.jpg

(Part 1 is an external drive. You'd want the image in a public folder, not a user folder like above; UNIX permissions.)

Do a search on "container" in the Forums here. We've had several recent discussions.

As long as the drive is mounted and shared, it should work. I don't know whether this bends the rules on what FileMaker recommends, which is that no part of the path to the FileMaker files be shared. I don't know exactly how that applies when it's a separate drive on the same machine. It's a controversial subject; experts please chime in.

Thank you for introducing me to the concept of container calculation fields. That makes sense. However, I am still having trouble writing a path prefix that will return my image.

Here is what I'm facing:

Images are located in Volumes/Images/Blah/Blah/Blah/(variable)/Filename.tif

Databases are in Library/Filemaker Server 7/Databases/...

I have already edited the Unix permissions of the external drive's (Images) relevant folders. Do you think these folders need to have a different owner? Perhaps the "special" fms7 user? Or is that meddling too far into what Filemaker does not recommend?

To make this even more difficult, I need the solution to be cross-platform.

I'd greatly appreciate any more ideas on this. Thanks!