I understand.
And as a matter of fact, I can’t even get “snapshots” of Scapple myself. (Never tried, don’t actually want them.)
But, I know that when you import a file, say a Scapple file named “Test” to a Scrivener project, it becomes “content” in whatever Files/Data/BA544094-2FC2-4864-A978-4E2D2B5AA79A folder, and that if the user edits “Test” (so what was in itself the original file – thus the potential confusion), Scrivener has no way of knowing.
Whatever a user does, Scrivener will always show/open “content.scap”.
And using save-as in Scapple is kind of the same. (It spawns a file that Scrivener can’t possibly be aware of.)
I’ll keep quiet now. We’ll see what the user did.
You know far better than I do anyways. (Sorry I got mixed up in it.)
Here is what I have come up with:
I am on MacOS Ventura, MBP M1 Max.
I created a file called Flow.scap in Scabble. I saved it to Directory folder “My Project”
I created a Scrivener Project “Ah Ha” and saved to the same folder
I dragged the scap file in the Finder over to the open Ah Ha Project and dropped it into the Research folder in Scrivener.
This action created a “content.scap” file stored by Scrivener amongst the files within the Ah Ha package (Mac term analogous to a Project folder I believe on Windows). This package obscures the many files used by Ah Ha to Mac users. Thus accessing it is not a typical Mac user move.
It also created a Flow icon in the Research folder representing the snapshot file (content.scap) of the file I created in Scabble. If I open this icon in the original app, then I can edit it and save in Scabble, then use the Reload/Refresh comand to update the displayed data in the Ah Ha Project.
This fits with Section 8.1.3 of the manual for Mac users.
Then, I tried using a Link.
I deleted the Flow.scap link in the Research folder of the Ah Ha Project.
I selected the Research folder then went to Import/Research Files from Alias… and imported the Flow.scap file as a link (thanks, Vincent). Clicking this opened the original flow.scap file in Scabble. I edited it and saved it.
I went into Scrivener and selected the Flow icon in Research, which caused a display of the earlier version of the file that Scrivener had saved. I then did a Reload/Refresh and the displayed info was the same as the recently edited flow.scap file.
This all as per Section 9.2 of the manual.
So I can use two methods to achieve what I wished for. My regrets for not having read and understood the whole manual before starting this. However, my wish, I believe would be more intuitive and get rid of the need for the manual Reload/Refresh action.
Thanks for the details, I think we’re on the same page now.
All right, glad you’ve got it sorted out.
Yes the method you used first creates a duplicate of the original, and in most cases you wouldn’t need the original and that point and could trash it or archive it somewhere, and just manage the file from that point forward in Scrivener, using the Open in External Editor feature.
With links, aka aliases, you want to keep the original of course, because that is the only version.
The reason for there being a manual refresh is that it would be very expensive, in terms of computer resource usage, to constantly monitor all of the links in your project and check for modifications to them. I have some programs that work that way, and they constantly churn at around 4 to 6% CPU no matter what you’re doing. It leads me to not leave them open for long periods of time, especially if I’m on the move and relying on battery power. I believe there are some systems better at this than others, but for native Mac software it isn’t very good, as there is no good native way of doing it.
For perspective we did used to do this for the Scratch Pad. The contents of that folder was constantly monitored so that changes made in other programs would show up in the Scratch Pad instantaneously. But we had to use a third-party toolkit to do that, and it eventually got unstable, leading to excessive crashing when using the Scratch Pad. So we had to remove that, and now there is a refresh button on the Scratch Pad as well.
Until Apple provides a good framework for this, one that doesn’t use a lot of system resources, we’ll have to live with the manual refresh button. I do hope that is something they address, because to my mind having a good two-way understanding of when a file changes is a modern expectation.
Why not set a specific folder that is scanned at a predetermined (by user pref) time span for any changes (keep it simple - scan every: 5 minutes, 30, 60, or daily). Kind of a non-AI approach but would work and keep CPU use down. You already use timers for auto-save…
