Deck development-testing phase

[Kerry]

Hi Ernie,

FCD is such a wonderful app - I've been using it with Quizlet decks since I first bought my iPad last year. Now I'm making my own deck. Everything so far is going well. I have a question about the media download.

I'm using Dropbox and I've placed my unicode text file alongside the matching media folder (just a few images and sounds for testing at this stage). I'm playing around with the formatting, colours etc. Each time I make a series of new edits, I delete the deck then download the updated file to check the result. I note that the media is also downloaded again. Eventually I will have about 100 multiple side cards with images and sounds - is there a way to bypass the unchanged media update and grab only the updated text file?

ALSO I noted in other posts the reference to adding a link in the text file to the media folder's location - I'm not totally clear about this method. Does it mean that the images/sound are embedded as a link only and they are stored off-device (say in dropbox and accessed via internet, dynamically) or that they are downloaded and stored on iPad separate to the FCD app. If it's the latter, are the images/sounds also accessible via iPad's photo folder or iTunes? Or have I misunderstood the purpose and advantage of the media URL?

[Ernie]

Hi Kerry,

When updating an existing deck, instead of adding a new deck... tap "Edit", the deck to update, then "Download". This will update the deck with the new text. It will ask if you want to keep your existing media files or re-download. The default is to keep your existing files to speed up the import time.

As for the media location (media directory URL), it's not what you were guessing. When you download/import a deck, it needs to be able to find your media files. You put them in a "matching media folder" on dropbox, so the app can find it. If you'd rather put the pictures somewhere else, then this media-dir option just tells the app where to find them. When importing, pictures will get imported at that time and get stored with the deck, just like usual.


Ernie

[Kerry]

Thanks for clarifying that. I understand perfectly now how that makes the same images available to other decks.