I’ve been having problems with compile and was playing with various settings trying to figure out the problem. These problems have been reported here previously so I will not duplicate them. However, I have not seen the following issue listed:
I had previously compiled to myfile.rtf. I opened that file in Word to view the results. I alt-tabbed back to Scrivener and made some changes to the compile settings and attempted to compile again without closing Word first. Scrivener appropriately warned me the file could not be saved, but then, in the next dialog, reported that compile had completed successfully. It did not actually complete successfully since it couldn’t save over an open file.
Minor, I know but I figured you’d want to know about it. This might confuse someone less fluent in computers who doesn’t understand the concept of file locks or the difference between system and program errors.
Sounds like one for the documentation. I’ve made a note to mention how Word locks files. Few word processors will refresh the document when changes are encountered on the disk, though, so it should probably just state in general terms that a file should be closed in all other programs when updating it with compile.
Actually, my concern was that scrivener reported it completed the compile successfully. I did receive an appropriate error that the file was not saved but many less computer literate people would be confused by the apparently conflicting messages and assume the last one (compile successful) was the correct one.
At least, my Mom and many of her friends would react that way.
Hmm, I’ll have to check but that might be outside of Scrivener’s ability. It could very well be the problem was that Windows didn’t report the status accurately the second time, so no error could be relayed to the user.