We’ve been using TP5 for seven years. I had purchased directly and my husband purchased another copy on the App Store (we have at least 3 Macs each).
He is on my Family Sharing.
I just got a new Mac Studio so I purchased TapForm Pro Lifetime with Family access on the Mac Store. I installed it on the Mac Studio and imported my database from an archive on the laptop. That worked fine.
I opened my Laptop, and installed TapForms Pro from the Apple Store, and imported the same archive. But it was not recognizing that I have bought it and was only showing a few records on the “trial”. But I think that may have been a delay from the App Store because now it is showing it as Purchased (that seemed to happen when I changed my Sync Settings to “Nearby” as then suddenly all the records were displays).
But the Document ID is not the same, so I don’t believe they will stay in sync. I can’t figure out how to change the Doc ID though (ie used to be easy).
How do I fix just my Macs, before trying to add my husbands. Thanks.
We’ve always sync’d via Nearby (Wifi) option and it works well. Can I continue using Nearby, or do I have to use iCloud? (I find Safari Bookmarks take forever to sync.)
Finally, I notice the option to Import > TP Pro Archive database is grayed out. Why is that?
I got the two files to sort of sync. From the Sync page:
“Before you can sync, you must have a copy of the same document open on each of your devices. Use the Send Document function to transfer a copy of your document from one device to another. On Mac, click on the Share button at the bottom of the main Documents window. On iOS, tap on the share button at the top of the main Documents view and select “Send Document”. Once you have the same document open on each device, then you can setup sync between them. Tap Forms must be running on each device and have the main Documents view visible in order for the transfer to take place.”
This took me a while to decipher. I would call the window “Database Documents” (like in the Windows menu), as I read that as the Mac’s Document’s folder.
“Send Document” function – there is a File > Send Document menu but it is grayed out. I had to close the database, so I could see the “Home Screen” aka Database Documents.
Then I could find the “Send Document to another device” at the bottom of the TapForms Home Screen. That opened the same document on my laptop, with the same ID.
Now both databases are in Sync.
However, when I close TapForms Pro on the laptop, and reopen it, there are “No Documents” in my list. I had to find it again in Downloads folder. Even if I Open the file, it still says “No documents” on the Home Screen. How do I fix this?
I repeated this on my 3rd Mac. While the databases seem to sync, they don’t appear in the Databases on the Home Screen except on the original Mac. Is this “as designed”?
Hi Trish,
I’m glad you worked out the syncing.
If a document doesn’t show up on the main Database Documents window, you can drag it to there and let go when you see the blue horizontal line appear. But first make sure the document isn’t opened in Tap Forms.
Thanks,
Brendan
OH, and thanks for purchasing Tap Forms Pro!
Thanks Brendan, the new Pro version looks great.
However, it’s been so long since we set up our shared Contacts database that I’m not sure I’m doing this right. I Shared the document from the 1st Mac to a folder in Dropbox, and then “opened” that document on two other Macs directly from Dropbox. But I’m finding that TapForms Pro is just “quitting” with crash reports.
Should I instead be copying this database to each computer’s Documents folder, or another folder, rather than opening the same Dropbox file? That way each Mac will have their own local file that then syncs because the ID is the same.
+ I went back to read the Manual but I’m just getting error message now, in Safari and Firefox.
browser shows white page and
error code: 526
https://www.tapforms.com/help-mac/pro
I gather everyone is updating PHP right now so maybe related. I’m doing that too…
I updated PHP on my website the other day. I use manula.com for hosting my online user manual. They are currently experiencing problems right now. I’ve emailed them, but have only received their auto-responder. Waiting to hear back from them.
You should never open a document on a cloud storage device such as Dropbox. That can cause database file corruption.
You can use Dropbox just to send a copy of the document to another device, but don’t open it up from within Dropbox. Drag it to the Tap Forms Pro Database Documents window and Tap Forms will move it to the right location. Or select any document that you see on the Database Documents window and then select the “Show in Finder” command from the File menu and Tap Forms will take you to the location where it looks for files. You can then drag the document to that location.
You can also customize the location Tap Forms Pro looks for documents on the App Settings screen if you want to put your documents in a different location than the default. But don’t make that custom location a cloud storage service such as iCloud Drive or Dropbox or Google Drive, etc.
Or you can use the Send Document function that uses AirDrop to send a file from one device to another. But the file will go into the Downloads folder on the destination device. You would then want to move it to the folder that Tap Forms Pro looks for documents as described above.
Thanks,
Brendan
Thanks, that makes sense now. I’ve fixed my two Silicon Macs (I hope, using Local Documents folder as the default).
I’ve installed Tap Forms Pro on my husbands laptop. He is on my Family Sharing (I am the “organizer”). He went to the popup that says “Purchased by Trish” and downloaded TapForms Pro from that page.
But when he added the master database, it only shows 10 records and is asking him to pay for it.
We’ve double checked everything on Apple App Store. TapForms Pro does not show up under his Subscriptions. I’ve waited a couple of hours to see if it was an Apple Store delay, but still on trial version.
Is there something we’re missing? It said Lifetime included Family Sharing. Thanks.
Did you click on the “Restore Purchase” link on the subscribe window? That will activate it on his Mac.
Also the manual webpages are working again.
Yes, he clicked “restore purchase” a few times, but it just says that he has never purchased it before. Dialog pops up with message:
“Your App Store account has no previous subscription to Tap Forms Pro. Ensure you are logged in with the correct App Store account or purchase a new subscription.”
Anything else we could check?
Yes. Go to the Manage Subscriptions screen on your Mac, then click on Tap Forms Pro on your list of subscriptions. You should see it say Family and there should be a switch that you can turn on or off to share the subscription.
I tried that, but TapFormsPlus doesn’t show up as a Subscription (perhaps it’s because it’s a Lifetime purchase?)
But I figured it out! I was Sharing Purchases with hubby, but he also had to Share his purchases too on his account. Once I did that, the “Subscribe” button went away, and the Settings have the Sync button and all is syncing!
I found the answer on an Apple help page:
“In order to share in-app purchases from participating apps, make sure that Share My Purchases is turned on for the account that made the purchase, as well as the account they want to share the purchase with. ”
under Learn More at the end of this page.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/111114
Thanks for your patience, especially on a weekend.
Ah excellent! Thanks for letting me know about the sharing purchases in both accounts part. I hadn’t realized that as this was also my first foray into a lifetime purchase option for Tap Forms Pro.
.
