May 2025: Still Unsure How To Minimize / Eliminate Usage of System Drive

[Kurtois]

Minimizing Tapforms Client Data Storage Requirements/

Above, I include a link to my discussion on this topic for Tap Forms v5. I am still troubled on how best to minimize the storage requirements for a Tap Forms Document, sadly.

Note, I did opt for iCloud Sync with the Document I am working on for my project. I plan to utilize a variety of PDF, JPG, and PNG file types for a given field of type ‘Photos’.

1.
In order to get up and running quickly, I am likely going to use a ‘Photos’ field type in my Document. It sounds like I can relocate the Tap Forms Document file to an external drive saving space on my local system drive, however, will that not break the iCloud Sync?

2.
There was discussion in the post I link to above about placing “photo” files on a host like Amazon’s S3. Quite honestly, I have only dealt with linking to hosted files on FTP servers. I have no idea how to work with Amazon’s S3. (Could we get a tutorial on that or a link to a good one, please?)

Anyway, I would prefer to move a solution where “photo” files are hosted on a low-cost file host. However, my concern is viewing the photos. If a URL is provided for a field in Tap Forms, I understand a globe is displayed where a user can click to display the image in a pop-up window. I noted a script referenced in another post/
by @pasamiogmail-com that maybe provides a solution like I am after. However, I am not sure I grasp what this looks like when implemented.

[Brendan]

Hi Kurtois,

1. Where the .tfpro document is stored is irrelevant to iCloud sync. The sync occurs within Tap Forms, not using iCloud Drive or anything like that. In fact, you don’t want to store a .tfpro (or .tapforms) document on iCloud Drive or risk database file corruption. You can change the default location on the App Settings screen.

2. Tap Forms Pro is not integrated with Amazon S3, so that won’t work and I’ve never used it, so I don’t have a tutorial for it. Although I do plan on allowing you to specify a URL where Tap Forms can pick up the photo from on a media object.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Kurtois]

2.
I understand Amazon S3 is not integrated with Tap Forms. However,Tap Forms could use a URL to an image asset and render it, correct? This is what I was hoping for more information about.

My concern on both an iOS device and macOS is storage requirements.

Brendan wrote:

Although I do plan on allowing you to specify a URL where Tap Forms can pick up the photo from on a media object.

I suspect this is further on down the road for TF.

[Author]

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