Scrivener and Dropbox Sync · 1:16am May 21st, 2022
I am doing a bear tasting and a blog posting. Forgive if this post is slurred. I didn't drop my phone.
. As Lightweight. Definitely drink. Wife drove. Made a voice recording because I need this as a write. First time drunk. Need to add I'm 63 so this is landmark. The El Cap IPA and Firefall Ted are spektaculer.
I said in my previous blog, I had to do some fancy maneuvering to with OneDrive to support having Dropbox on all my devices. Specifically, on my Mac I made Dropbox a folder in my OneDrive. This makes OneDrive sync Dropbox, where Dropbox syncs itself, making Dropbox available on my Windows computer. So far, I haven't lost any data.
Not ready to write or edit a novel using this setup, but I am writing this blog syncing with the scheme. It works.
The Scrivener documentation has specific instructions about OneDrive. Since my Windows platform only links to Dropbox through a OneDrive sync, I've still got to investigate that before using Scrivener there.
As far as the syncing works, there is a fully documented rule: Close your project when you finish editing, before closing your computer. A project contains your writing, plus your notes, footnotes, and research materials. When you close, Scrivener syncs. It sometimes asks if you want to sync now or sync later (iOS and iPadOS), or it just syncs. You get a progress bar. It puts the onus on Dropbox to sync to the cloud. The documentation for the Mac recommends watching the menu bar icon for Dropbox and to waited for the sync to complete before closing your computer. No ambiguity there.
When you open a Scrivener project on the other platform, it reads it from Dropbox. This doesn't obviate the need to confirm that Dropbox can sync. You ought to check for Internet connectivity, at least. It also tells you or asks you about syncing. Last, Scrivener remembers the last insertion point of the cursor. When you open the document, you can see what you lasted typed. If you see what you last worked on, it's a pretty good indicator!
That said, I did leave a Scrivener project open on two devices. Scrivener noticed and opened up a sidebar with the found document. Scrivener has a document compare feature, but I haven't figured out how to test that in this situation. I will intentionally cause this failure and test this. If this works well, if the comparison and subsequent update is simple, I will cease to worry.
Next up on my list: How does the document life-cycle work? I've already tested that I can copy text directly from the Scrivener editor window to the FimFiction story box. FimFiction converts everything properly to BBcode, possibly because the edited files are actually RTF.
I hear they might have a Pooh Golden Lager.
Did you try it?
Or maybe that's only available in the Hundred Acre Woods.