ownCloud desktop client

To easily collaborate on research, you can synchronize documents to your local workstation through the ownCloud Desktop Client.
The ownCloud Desktop Client keeps your Research Drive files in sync with a folder on your harddisk. 

The ownCloud Desktop Client is available for Windows, Mac OS & various Linux distributions. You can download the ownCloud Desktop client on the ownCloud website.

After installing the desktop client, you can easily synchronise files and folders. You can select which Research Drive folders you wish to synchronise on your computer's hard drive.
To upload your files, copy or drag  the files to your local Research Drive client. The files will be automatically synchronised with the  web-based Research Drive.

Enable Desktop Client logging

If the desktop client shows unexpected behavior, the logging can often provide more clarity.

To enable logging, open the ownCloud desktop client → Settings → Advanced → Log Settings and enable logging as below:

Alternatively you can enable logging by the following steps:

Start up ownCloud Desktop Client (once) with log functionality enabled

The ownCloud Desktop Client can also be started once or as standard with logging functionality.

Windows

 1. Make sure the application is off! (Check the systray and, if necessary, close the ownCloud client).
 2. Click on start / the Windows logo (in Windows 10, with the right mouse button), and then on 'Run'.
 3. Enter 'cmd' and press enter / OK.
 4. In the 'black screen', enter: cd \
 5. Then: 'cd Program Files\owncloud' (or, on a 64-bit machine cd Program Files (x86)\ownCloud)
 6. Then enter: owncloud.exe --logfile C:\Users\<username>\Desktop\owncloud.log (Note: replace <username> with your Windows username!)
 7. The log file is then kept on the desktop; the file is called owncloud.log.

Mac OS

 1. Make sure the application is off! (Check the systray and, if necessary, close the ownCloud client).
 2. Open the 'Terminal' application.
 3. In Terminal, enter: cd /Applications/owncloud.app/Contents/MacOS/
 4. Then enter: ./owncloud --logfile ~/Desktop/owncloud.log
 5. The desktop client starts and keeps the log file on the Desktop. The file is called owncloud.log.

Desktop Client configuration

The ownCloud Desktop Client has multiple of options to synchronize your files;

 - All files
 - Specific folder(s)
 - Virtual File System

When you initialize a new connection, by default the Desktop Client will synchronize your complete account to a specific folder.

Synchronize All Files

You can configure some options here;
   1a. Ask for synchronization of large folder, with a size which you can set yourself
   1b. Not syncing external mounted storage by default, which you can configure within ResearchDrive.
   2. Location on your own machine where the files should be synced  

Sync specific folder(s) only

Where personal accounts not have a storage quotas, it can be useful to only synchronize specific shares of project environments.
Synchronization of specific folders can be set at the first configuration, but also later when a configuration profile already exists.

During setup

1. Select the second option; "Manually create folder sync"
2. Choose the specific folders which you will sync.
3. Finally, at "Local Folder" you can choose a specific location on your own machine
   

For an existing connection

1. Select the option "Add Folder Sync Connection" in your Desktop Client configuration (See Settings menu).
2. Define a "Local Folder" on your own machine, where the files synced to.
3. Finally choose the specific specific folder(s) from Research Drive which you wants to sync
   
    
   

Virtual File System (VFS)

Sinds Desktop Client version 2.4 it's possible to configure the client to maken use of the virtual file system concept.
With VFS, all folders and files will be visible on your machine, but not directly accessible.
A so-called placeholder will be placed for each file, where the actual file is only retrieved when accessing or when it is specifically downloaded.

With VFS it is possible to pre-download files or complete folders, which will actually place them on your own system and thus be directly accessible.
In addition, you can also place folders or files "offline" afterwards, for example to free up space.


You can enable VFS via the Desktop Client settings for a specific configured synchorization.

Desktop Client Issues

If you experience problems with the Desktop Client, you can try the following things.
1. Check if you can access the Research Drive environment with your web browser to exclude internet problems

2. Make sure you're Desktop Client is up-to-date. You can find your current version at the settings tab, in the settings menu. 

3. Try reinstalling the desktop client by uninstalling and reinstalling the latest version. Also remove the configuration profile as a precaution.