Setting up Mounted Volumes to Share Assets

The Xinet allows you to use your personal computer to take advantage of the central file server connected to your local network. Among many possibilities you will find Xinet useful for:

•	Enhancing graphic production efficiency and quality

•	Sharing assets with coworkers, including large image files

•	Backing up and/or keeping versions of assets

•	Sharing applications licensed for multiple users

Since Xinet understands Macintosh desktop conventions, local users can use it to share assets by simply manipulating icons on their desktops. Beforehand, your system administrator will set up an account for you on the server and give you a password that allows access to shared volumes.

Kinds of volumes for storing or sharing assets

Your Xinet administrator decides what kind of volumes will be available for sharing. Besides individual volumes which provide a secure place on the server for assets to which other system users will not have access, possibilities include:

•	Public volumes for any kind of asset

•	High-resolution volumes for which the server automatically creates low-resolution, for-placement-only versions of images. (You may put non-image assets here too.)

•	For Placement Only (FPO) volumes where low-resolution versions of images in the high-resolution volumes appear automatically. (You may put non-image assets here too.)

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Web-ready volumes where versions of high-resolution images, documents and video assets, ready for presentation on the Web, appear automatically. The software also provides a configurable, Web-based interface for remote users to work with assets on the server, including XMP annotations and other custom metadata fields. Images will appear as JPEGs or GIFs, depending on the original image file type. Xinet also presents previews of InDesign, PDF and Microsoft Office documents—and, if your server is running Video for Xinet, presents keyframes from video assets and dynamic HTML pages, CAD files, as well as any artwork embedded in MP3 files. These Web-ready volumes are rarely made mountable to users on their desktops because so much of their functionality depends on the browser-based interface. However, your system administrator could make them available should you have a special need to have access in this fashion.

Which kind of volume should you use? (Macintosh clients only)

While you can actually drag any asset to any of the shared volumes, there are general strategies for using the various types of volumes which will be more effective. In general, you might want to:

•	Use high-resolution volumes when you’ll be using files for image editing

There are, however, exceptions. Following chapters provides details that vary depending on the layout programs and graphic effects they apply.

The following section describes how to access Xinet volumes when you have local access. If you find that the directions don’t work, check with your system administrator. He or she may have chosen Xinet options which change more-standard system usage.

Quite a few local users will work in graphic-production facilities. Xinet offers many tools designed to streamline graphic production beyond the simple sharing of assets. Following chapters will be devoted to these tools.

Mounting Volumes on a OS X Platform

Local connections to a shared volume on the Xinet server.

To use Xinet for local asset sharing, you must connect to a shared volume on the file server. Make sure you get your password from your system administrator and find out the proper name of the file server before you begin. Then, follow these steps:

1.	Select Connect to Server in the Finder’s Go pull-down menu.

2.	Use the dialog opened by the Browse button if you don’t see the zone and server you want initially.

3.	After selecting a server, login, giving your user name and password. Then click on the Connect button.

4.	Select the shared volume(s) you would like to mount. You can hold down the Shift or Command key, if you want to select multiple volumes.

5.	Click the OK.

Note: If client machines experience slow file read/write from Mac SMB mounted volumes, turn off packet signing on the Mac clients. For details on how to do this, go to the following page on the Apple Web site: “Turn off packet signing for SMB 2 and SMB 3 connections” (https://support.apple.com/en-euro/HT205926).

Mounting Volumes on a Windows Platform

Local connections to a shared volume on the Xinet server (Windows client)

If you work locally on a Windows client connected to the server, talk to your Xinet Administrator about using the Xinet PC Connectivity software. This is a Xinet modification of GPL Samba which offers asset sharing and print spooling to Windows clients. The Xinet modification stores file names on the Xinet server so that they are compatible with WebNative name protocols and also, when the Xinet database is running, synchronizes the database when Windows clients manipulate assets.