filesOnDemand with local files

[snck]

Hey @bernhard, I usually use a setup where a production website and a staging website are on the same file system. I love the filesOnDemand feature because it saves a lot of disk space for the local development system and also for the staging system, but it is also very slow on sites with a lot of assets. 

I think it would be great to be able to specify a local path instead of a URL to a website (or in addition). Ideally, if a local path is specified, then if a file or variation (for images) is not present, filesOnDemand would first search via the specified alternate path to see if the assets are present and deliver them (without downloading or copying) directly. The assets folder of the staging system would therefore only grow when a user creates new pages or makes changes to existing ones, but not when content that exists in the production system (on the same file system) is to be accessed.

I assume that filesOnDemand has so far been developed primarily for downloading assets that are only available remotely. But perhaps it could also cover this application purpose - or a new feature with a different name?

Cheers,
Flo

[bernhard]

Hey @snck thx for the idea.

I'm not sure. On the one hand I think it's a nice idea, on the other hand I'm not sure how much it would really help.

I'm also having staging + production on the same system and in the rare cases where I have to re-sync staging and production I've always just copied the DB + files over. Given that both are on the same system this is really fast and not an issue.

filesOnDemand is built for the case of developing locally where downloading several GB of data might be slow (I have only 30 megabit downloadrate 😉 ) so I only need to download some MB once in a while when I visit a page that did not exist on dev.

On the other hand I see room for improvement in synching staging/production, so whoever wants to tackle this, I'm happy to help and add it!