Product Reviews

Arguably the icing on Creative Suite's cake, Version Cue is a networkable file manager that does a lot more than manage files. Essentially, it's an instant file server program that manages your files within projects, maintains an XMP-searchable database of available documents, prevents two people from working on the same document at the same time, maintains a retraceable history of document changes so you can always go back to an old version, and keeps local and remote users organised. No wonder Adobe is finding it tricky to explain Version Cue to new users - it fulfils so many roles at once.

On Cue

Every Creative Suite box includes Version Cue, but only one copy needs to be installed per workgroup. The program is then run on the installed machine from the System Preferences, whereupon it becomes available to the users in the same workgroup but only within the Creative Suite applications; it doesn't mount on the Desktop as a conventional volume.

When Version Cue is enabled in those applications, you can switch from normal Finder navigation in the File menu's Open and Save dialogs to the special Version Cue mode. Documents saved within projects in Version Cue mode are saved to the hard disk where Version Cue is running, again hidden from the Finder.

As its name suggests,

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Version Cue keeps track of document versions. Each time you use the Save A Version command from a Creative Suite application, the virtual server saves a new instance of that document without overwriting any earlier versions. Each version of a document is date- and user-stamped, and can be given unique keywords and even comments. You can search for documents using any of these fields, as with a conventional media management system, and browse all the versions that have been saved for a particular document, complete with thumbnail previews.

If you need to, you can recall an old version and make it current. It's the ultimate Undo, if you like; a History palette on rocket fuel. All those document versions are maintained after you quit your Creative Suite programs or even after switching off all your machines. Obviously, having too many versions will bloat the hard disk running Version Cue, so they can be pruned at will.

While you're editing a document opened from a Version Cue project, it will appear locked to all other users to prevent overwriting and will remain so until you specifically 'Save A Version' and close it.

Saving grace

If you use the regular Save command, your edited document will be safe on your machine but not checked back into Version Cue, so you're prompted to do so before closing. This means you can, for example, open a document through Version Cue, save it to a CD-R and take it home to work on. That document will then remain locked to other Version Cue users in the workgroup until you synchronise the edited copy back in the next day.

Version Cue isn't foolproof, as it requires a mild level of attention. It is, however, a no-brainer to set up, much less trouble than other check-in/check-out systems, offers more intelligent versioning than most media management systems and works seamlessly across the Creative Suite programs.