Just curious what is the difference between an archive and a backup? Help file doesn’t discuss the archive.
Thanks in advance.
A backup file is just a zip file of the .tapforms document. The .tapforms document is really just a folder (actually a package in macOS) that contains the db.sqlite file, some folders, and a folder of attachments.
So it basically contains everything in your document.
A Tap Forms Archive is an export of an individual form that’s then stored as a JSON structured data.json file along with a folder of attachments. It’s great for sharing a fully populated form with other Tap Forms users. Or you can use it to split up a big document into smaller documents. For example, in the older version of Tap Forms, everything was always stored in one database. With Tap Forms 5, you can have multiple documents to store your forms. So maybe you want to move all your personal forms to another document to keep separate from your work forms. Or you have some forms that contain private data that you want to encrypt but you don’t want to encrypt all the other data. You can use the Export Tap Forms Archive function to export just the private data, import that into a new empty document and then encrypt that document, leaving the other document unencrypted.
It could also be useful for sharing on the Tap Forms Template Exchange forum. Right now most people upload the Tap Forms Template Files (.tff) to share with others. But you can also upload a .tfarc file if you also want to share the data in the form and not just the template.
The .tfarc file is actually a zip file. If you want to see what’s inside, rename the .tfarc to .zip and then double-click on it in the Finder to view the contents. You’ll see the data.json file which is all of your data stored in a JSON structure.
So to make a short story long, Backups save everything, Tap Forms Archives save just the form (and any linked forms) and all of its records (including attachments, photos, etc.)
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