The Mistika folder structure is designed to share user settings between multiple systems, multiple users and multiple Mistika products.
For those reasons, folders containing shareable settings are separated from hardware related files and local session settings that should never be shared.
If you have more than one Mistika product, more than one user, or more than one system running Mistika then please read this article carefully before configuring your equipment:
Mistika has many configuration files in different folders, which we can be divided in two categories:
Settings and configuration files that are useful to share between all systems.
This includes things like the mConfig presets, render presets, render targets, display filters, user settings (hotkeys, color panel preferences ...), DCP keys, the workflows node library, etc.
All the shareable files are initially stored in the SGO AppData/shared folder (which is a normal folder on Windows and Mac, but a unix link on linux systems). These files are not part of the Mistika software structure and they are neither related to the local hardware, so they can be safely shared between systems on a user definable location. But it must be always available in order for Mistika products to work properly.
Logically, on first installation the system will have its own copy of the shared folder with the default content, so you will want to copy the shared folder under a common place in the network in order to share it with more systems.
Once this is done, then you will need to tell all Mistika products to use that centralized location in their preferences. For example, in the case of Mistika Boutique and Mistika Ultima this must be done with mConfig->FilePaths->Set shared settings folder
The common shared folder does not need to have any specific name, you can put any name you prefer as long as you select it later in the MistikaConfig tool. The only critical point is that the shared folder needs to be always available to all systems in a central server, not in a local folder of a particular user system (because if that system is powered off all others will lose it). So it should be located in a reliable network drive.
Apart from the shared folder, the other shareable folders are:
- The projects folder
- The default media folder (used to propose default render paths)
Note for system administrators: The paths to the shared folder, projects folder, media folder, and other definable paths are stored in this xml file (since Misitka 10.5 version):
- Windows: User_Home_Folder/AppData/Local/sgoMistika/mistikaPaths.xml
- Linux/Mac: User_Home_Folder/.sgoMistika/mistikaPaths.xml
Settings and configuration files that must be local to each system
These files are located under two places:
- The software installation folder "SGO Apps" (or SGO Apps.app) in the case of Mac. The base path for the installation folder depend on each platform, and it is defined in this file:
Windows: C:\ProgramData\SGO\installation.xml
Linux/Mac: User_Home_Folder/SGO Apps/installation.xml
The software installation paths contained in the installation.xml file are asked on the first mistika installation time and they can not be changed manually later. If you want to change them you will need to uninstall all mistika products and then reinstall them one by one (the first product being reinstalled will ask for the installation folder, and all the others will use it automatically)
- The local setting files for each user. They are located under the folder:
User_Home_Folder\SGO AppData\MistikaProductName (local setting files for each product)
The "SGO AppData" folder is located under the home folder of each user, and contains configuration files writable by the user.
All those folders should never be shared between different systems. because they are specifically configured for to the local hardware at installation time, with several aspects depending on the OS version, RAM, CPUs, attached color panels, video board model, and many other things that can be different between the systems.
For example, in the particular case of Mistika Ultima and Mistika Boutique most of these settings are kept in the SGO AppData/Mistika/mistikarc.cfg file, but some others are in other sub directories.
Note: A full description of all the Mistika folders is maintained in this document
Sharing media files under different mount paths
Please note that this article only applies to user setting files. If you want to share media files in different computers using different mount points please read this other article
Linux only (Mistika Ultima):
- On Linux only it is also possible to have multiple Mistika versions installed in a same system at the same time, and then switch to a particular version at user request. (this is not possible on Mac and Windows)
Each Mistika Ultima version that is installed is located in these folders:
$HOME/SGO Apps/Mistika Ultima/Mistika ultima.VersionName (Mistika software)
$HOME/SGO AppData/Mistika/Mistika.VersionName (Configuration files for the local system and 3rd party files)
- All the versions installed in a same system are inactive except one, which is defined by these unix links (same paths without version name extension)
$HOME/SGO Apps/Mistika Ultima/Mistika ultima
$HOME/SGO AppData/Mistika/Mistika.VersionName
Mistika knows what version is active by following that links. To change the active version easily just use the mConfig->VersionManager, which will offer all installed versions and it will change said links for you.
NOTE: In general old projects can be loaded in more modern versions and work fine on them, but logically old versions will not properly understand files that are saved with more modern versions.