Media
The term "media" refers to any files that you might add to a site for visitors to experience. e.g. images, movies, music, PDFs, etc.
Sandvox allows you to customize how media is stored for a site using the Site Inspector.
To set how media files are stored:
- Open the Site Inspector.
- Go to the "Media" tab.
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Make your choice using the "Keep media originals with document" popup.
The available options are:
- Automatic
-
All media files are copied into the document except those in:
- your iTunes library
- your iPhoto library
- the Movies, Music and Pictures folders in your Home Directory
- Copy all files
- All media files are copied into the document.
- Reference all files
- No media files are copied into the document, Sandvox just stores a link to where they are kept.
Sandvox utilizes a smart mechanism when copying media files into a document; Media is only copied if not already present. For example, if you have the site to "copy all files" and then proceed to place the same photo on multiple pages of the site, Sandvox will only copy the image once. This stops the site document from swelling to an unnecessarily large size.
Note that changing this setting only affects new media files added to the site. Files already associated with the document are completely unaffected.
Why The Choice?
Sandvox gives you this choice to handle the trade-off between portability of your site and disk space. Imagine you want to add a 50 MB movie to your site. Where should Sandvox keep it?
If the movie is kept inside of the Sandvox document, there will be two copies; the original and the one inside the document. This will take up twice the disk space, but it does mean that you could move the document to another computer or delete the original movie, and everything would still work fine.
The alternative is to not copy the movie. Instead, Sandvox can just store a little note saying where the movie is on your computer. This saves on disk space, but if you delete the movie, or move the document to another computer, Sandvox may not be able to find it again.
Thus, Sandvox offers the choices outlined above.
Images
If you add an image to a site that is not in a supported format, it will be converted and copied into the document regardless of the above setting.
Movies
Due to their large size, we generally recommend that you do not add movie files to a site so in such a way that they are copied into the document. Instead, set the referencing to "Automatic" and place the videos in the "Movies" folder in your Home directory.
Publishing
When publishing, Sandvox places all media files in a directory named "_Media."
