Replay 360: Tips for Managing Project Files

The following tips will help you avoid unexpected behavior when creating, sharing, and publishing Replay 360 projects.

• Create, Edit, and Publish Projects on Your Local Hard Drive
• Save, Version, and Backup Projects Frequently
• Send Projects to Other Developers When You Need to Collaborate
• Host Published Content Anywhere
• Optimize File Paths and Naming Conventions

Create, Edit, and Publish Projects on Your Local Hard Drive

Always save and publish on your local hard drive (typically your C: drive). Working on a network drive or an external (USB) drive can cause erratic behavior, such as file corruption, an inability to save changes, and loss of project resources due to latency.

You can place a copy of your project on a network drive or an external drive for backup purposes, but avoid re-opening the file until you've moved it back to your local hard drive.

Save, Version, and Backup Projects Frequently

Save your work often. The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S is the fastest way to save. Do it so often it becomes muscle memory. You’ll be glad you did.

Create versions of your project during its development cycle so you can go back to earlier versions when necessary. Just go to the File tab on the Replay ribbon and choose Save As, then give your project a slightly different file name. For example, you might make a new version at the end of each work day and add the date to the file name so you can easily identify it.

Versioning is also a good way to backup your work. Just save earlier versions to the cloud, a network drive, or an external hard drive for safekeeping. (But always save the current version on your local hard drive.)

Send Projects to Other Developers When You Need to Collaborate

If you need to share a project file with another developer, we recommend zipping it first.

Then send the zipped file via email, external drive, network drive, etc.

Recipients should save it to their local hard drives and fully extract it before opening the project.

Host Published Videos Anywhere

Replay generates MP4 video files that can be viewed locally, hosted online, or embedded in e-learning courses.

Optimize File Paths and Naming Conventions

Be sure the file paths to your projects and published output are well under the 260-character limit imposed by Microsoft Windows. (Publishing adds characters to the file path you selected. If it exceeds 260 characters, your project won’t publish properly.)

Avoid using special characters, accents, or symbols in your file paths and file names. Learn more about naming conventions in this Microsoft article.