Hi all,
I’m considering buying the magazine archive USB, but I run a Linux OS exclusively: no Mac or Windows.
Can anyone tell me what format the archive is published in? The purchase info lists supported platforms but not the format; I’d rather not drop a chunk of cash on something in a proprietary format I won’t be able to open…
Replies
I installed it on a windows machine successfully, but when I moved over to my Mac, the drive was corrupted. Putting it back in the Windows machine it was corrupted as well. Either a heck of a coincidence or it self destructs. Beware when testing!
Whoa! Was this from the current USB, or a DVD? Either way, I'm surprised it would be writable...
Linux user here. I run the Windows FW archive (2015 version) through Wine:
https://www.winehq.org/
Works just fine.
@Bluemo That's promising - thanks! I'm updating Wine as I write this...
Hi: I had a follow up question on this if you don’t mind - are the archives in PDF format, or do they open in the Fine Woodworking reading app, like the digital copies of the current magazines?
Txs
The archive opens in the FWW reading app, displaying all the mag's covers. Selecting a particular issue will show that cover and the option (bottom of screen) to view the contents as a PDF file.
Are they in a folder, in pdf format, on the drive? I have the Taunton Threads Archive, and it is some proprietary format, not pdfs.
When I was digging through the forum archives before asking my question I formed the impression the articles were stored as PDF's and the archive application acted as an index for searching. However, I've never owned it, so I could be wrong: even if my guess is correct for how it was done, that may not be the way the archive is built now.
I have an older archive, 1975-2017, on a jump drive and the issues are in PDF format. I don't know how the new versions are formatted.
lthemick,
I reached out to our gurus and they came back telling me that it's not set up for Linux, and they haven't done any testing, so we can't give an official recommendation.
It looks like some have had luck though. I wish I had a solid answer for you.
Thanks for asking them, Ben! I'd love a clear "Yes it works" or "No it doesn't", but that's rarely the case with Linux ;-)
Ha! My favorite characteristic of Linux users is that they know the bring these things upon themselves! Keep us updated!
For others looking for Linux support.
The USB contains windows and mac applications that are Electron applications. The PDFs are hidden in an Electron archive.
To get to the PDFs. Install the application in a Windows VM.
The Electron archive is installed in C:\Users\$user_name\AppData\Local\Programs\Fine Woodworking Archive\resources\app.asar
Copy this to your Linux machine.
To extract you have to first install NPM.
sudo apt install npm
Then install the asar tool.
npm install --engine-strict asar
Then extract the files.
npx asar e ./app.asar ./
The PDFs are in build/assets/issues/
This just zapped me of any desire to ever try linux. Thank you for posting that though. Hopefully it's not just gibberish!
The problem isn't Linux. Its that the developers of the USB application decided to hide the underlying PDFs. If they had just left them in a folder on the USB there would be no need for the gibberish.
PDFs are universal and supported everywhere. Regardless of OS I would rather have the raw PDFs than the application that is on the USB.
There are even some posts on here about older versions of the USB application not working on newer versions of Windows. If just PDFs were accessible it would mitigate that problem.
I follow it!
As @jkinross points out below, this isn't a problem with Linux itself: the articles are in a universal, well-supported format. But someone - maybe the app developer, maybe the company purchasing or paying for the app - chose to support Windows and Mac and chose *not* to support Linux, likely because it's got a relatively small market share.
It's a common frustration for Linux users: there are common application stacks (Electron is one of them!). That can build cross-platform apps that will run on lots of OS's, including Linux: that it wasn't done in this case is likely a deliberate decision not to support it.
You win the prize - thanks for the detailed info!
Given it's Electron is a shame they didn't just build it for Linux too...
Yes, the .asar file is an archive, akin to .zip or .rar, that contains the actual pdfs. Depending on your platform, you just need the appropriate program to unpack the .asar archive.
What I was thinking - I'd rather not spin up a Windows VM just to extract an archive.
I think part of the point is that the archive is a product for sale. Making the PDFs universally available probably leans into the business model a bit too hard. The application required for access is the modern equivalent of the dongle that came with more costly software in the not-so-distant past.
Of course, if all humans could be trusted...
I hear what you're saying, and Taunton certainly has the right to make money from their content.
Unfortunately I don't think this is an effective way to do it: it's essentially using security-through-obscurity to make it marginally harder for someone to extract the content, but doesn't prevent distribution of the articles if an unscrupulous person makes a minimal effort to extract them.
So it mostly becomes a barrier and headache for honest users, not effective theft prevention.
On the subject of FWW archives, I contacted FWW last winter with a question about the quality of the pdfs. I got no response.
There is a common issue where text and graphics in the same illustration are next to each other with some crystal clear, others illegibly blurred. For example, issue 58 has a schematic on page 16 with this problem. Cabinet plans on pate 32 have illegible dimensions. An ad on page 89 has blurred text in the middle of readable text.
The plan on page 35 of issue 42 is useless.
This is prevalent on many issues in the archive. The ability to use an old pdf to build a project is limited by this quality problem.
My question is whether this has been addressed with new versions of the archive. There is no sense in throwing good money after bad.
Can we all get an answer here? Others should know this before spending $100 on an archive of smudged images.
I just checked each of those issues and pages on my archive. There are no problems with any of them.
Once in a while, when I've been scrolling through a lot of issues and pages, it takes a few seconds for a page to come in focus. Perhaps memory or cache needs to clear?
I wouldn't worry too much about a blurry 1986 ad from Trend Lines.
Thanks John.
I see the problem across many devices consistently, and it doesn't clear with extended time. How new is your archive? I think mine is a 2012.
Ordering from new ads doesn't have the good pricing.
Here's what I see. At least I can tell the front from the side.
My archive is a 2020. I think my previous version was about 2012, but I can't recall if I ever had issues.
Based on the info in the thread here, I've taken the plunge and ordered the archive.
I'll follow up on this thread when I get it and have a chance to play with it.
Thank you @jkinross for the explanation.
I'm a Linux user and just purchased too. Was going to skip it b/c didn't want to have to fuss with some weird viewer app (that you just know is going to unsupported in some newer version of Windows anyway).
Does anyone know where android mobile devices store issues that are downloaded through the FWW app?
I've got the same problem as john_c2 except mine is with an Apple device.
My old iPad recently rolled craps and consequently I "lost" all of my digital magazines downloaded with the FWW app. I just purchased a new iPad and was able to restore one year's worth of my collection but the rest all required me to pay. I'm on the yearly digital subscription and so, obviously, I was only able to get 8 magazines. I contacted customer service but I'm not optimistic about getting a helpful response.
Any idea where the issues might be "stored"?
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