Does anybody use Scrivener Desktop and iOS together?

[ighulme]

@JimRac

However, many people on these forums, myself included, have sync’d Scrivener between devices for years with zero issues.

As you’ve already concluded, the sync process is not yet foolproof. It does require a certain amount of discipline, of developing a process and sticking to it.

Thank you so much for a refreshingly clear reply! I am beginning to understand why my process seems at odds with how Scrivener is designed to work, and the reason for the problems I am encountering.

I use Scrivener desktop on my MacBook Air closer to a mobile device than Scrivener’s intended use seems to be. It is incredibly helpful to have it always running and be able to instantly access the program, but that seems to be the issue. Personally, I don’t use the iPad enough to warrant changing this pattern of behaviour, as I find that the ‘always on’ for the full Scrivener version is a huge boost to my creativity. It is amazing how frequently just jotting down notes in the moment turns into a full-blown writing session. I imagine that others would turn to the iOS version in this situation, but my 11” MacBook is portable enough to be with me most of the time.

@JimRac

As you’ve already concluded, the sync process is not yet foolproof.

I was beginning to think it was just me. I appreciate that Scrivener is run by a small team, so it is natural that there will always be issues that can’t be resolved. I have no problem with that whatsoever, I just need to discuss it so that I can understand the problems I am facing. It is only now that I am getting a clearer idea of how Scrivener is built to be operated, and the problems of deviating from this.

i.e. I understood that Scrivener desktop is designed to be left open while changes are made on iOS, but it seems the general consensus is to always shut it down after use because it is not as reliable to leave it open. That’s fine, I just needed to know which is the way it is intended to operate and what are the risks.

Likewise, the intended behaviour appears to be to always close a project on iOS before syncing at the end of a session. The sync button in the menu bar while a project is still open threw me a bit as I was syncing without closing and getting problems.

@JimRac

if your workflow is such that you switch constantly from device to device, or your situation such that you face constant interruptions which require you to immediately stop working and move to something completely unrelated,

This is ABSOLUTELY the case! My writing projects relate as much to art, illustration, music etc. — I am constantly back and forth, researching, creating in other areas and dropping the results back into Scrivener. I love that Scrivener desktop is the focal point for my creative endeavours, and as such is used 24/7.

To sum up: the main flaw related to my way of working appears to be that a desktop project can sync from dropbox automatically when open, but the iOS version can’t. A user must manually sync the iOS project to avoid file conflicts.

So, I would love to see an optional session lock on the desktop when an iOS project is open sometime in the future, so that I have peace of mind that I am not working on an out-of-date copy of a file. Perhaps the auto-sync on project open/close would be the perfect opportunity to implement this? Maybe a lock file could be sent to desktop on iOS project open, and removed on iOS project close? As stated earlier, perhaps an option to ignore the lock screen could be implemented if a user feels that no sync is necessary.

In the meantime I guess I can go back to my old-school proof-reading methods of pen and paper in the bath!

@JimRac

P.S. Your website is super impressive–one of the best author sites I’ve seen.

Thank you so much! It is something of a labour of love and takes up far too much time that I should be using for writing!

All the best, Ian

[kewms]

@ighulme

I use Scrivener desktop on my MacBook Air closer to a mobile device than Scrivener’s intended use seems to be. It is incredibly helpful to have it always running and be able to instantly access the program, but that seems to be the issue. Personally, I don’t use the iPad enough to warrant changing this pattern of behaviour, as I find that the ‘always on’ for the full Scrivener version is a huge boost to my creativity. It is amazing how frequently just jotting down notes in the moment turns into a full-blown writing session. I imagine that others would turn to the iOS version in this situation, but my 11” MacBook is portable enough to be with me most of the time.

FWIW, my iPad Air + external keyboard combination was life changing in this regard. I don’t even own a laptop anymore. YMMV.

OTOH, if your MacBook is with you most of the time and you like it that way, I don’t know that iOS Scrivener would really add much for you.

[narrsd]

@kewms

FWIW, my iPad Air + external keyboard combination was life changing in this regard.

Yes, that Magic Keyboard is a delight, isn’t it, and the pairing works anywhere.

That 11in MacBook might be sunilar, while the iPad Air has all all its own advantages.

The touch of the Magic Keyboard has seemed ideal and maintains so after two years - very precise feel with the fingers, nicely definite keydown so you’re sure about it always, and with the glass-face touchpad just as nice.

I might mention for anyone also having an age-related or other hand-stiffness, that the typing action combined with the slightly lower radius of movement works very well indeed – plus the iPad’s auto-correction and personalized substitutions list makes things as relaxed as you’d like for any kind of writing.

You do as ever need to keep a weather eye out for those not-quite-smart spell actions, but that’s like anything these days, and I’ve typed whole essays with eyes closed, haven’t had to do much to edit the results. See above, about ‘works anywhere’.

I guess I should also say that the overall feeling of working with a precision instrument under your fingers is just that – you do have to use habits of keeping your thumbs and maybe unconscious areas of palm away from the touchpad, or get jumps. What the piano teacher once said about arching the hand, in a mild way can be very useful also in practicehere

[tiffysquid]

I have found the syncing issue to be sufficiently awful that I don’t even use iOS with Scrivener anymore. I’m a journalist and writer by profession. Tinkering around with various states of “maybe it synced, maybe it didn’t” is unacceptable and unworkable for me.

If I need to work from my phone, I dictate into Notes, then cut and paste it into Scrivener when I get back to my MacBook Pro. My experience with attempting to use them together was terrible. I’m a huge Scrivener fan; I’m willing to admit that the sync-iOS-etc stuff is just not happening. That’s fine. I don’t need constant access to every Scrivener file.

[rms]

Scrivener on iOS synching with Dropbox to macOS Scrivener works, and has worked for years. If you wish to revisit making it work see on L&L’s FAQ posts for how to set it up, and of course you can ask questions here of the experts. Or just whinge, I guess.

[kewms]

FWIW, I use iOS Scrivener and Mac Scrivener constantly with no issues.

Yeah, I know, I’m biased, I work for L&L.

But in every “awful” synchronization situation I’ve encountered on the support side, there was something else going on.

[ighulme]

I think the conclusion that I have come to is that while sync does work, its reliance upon manual intervention seems to be the issue that polarises opinion about it.

I have read on many forums that lots of people never make use of the sync feature, and the process of going through conflicted files if something happens is a huge headache (some automated file comparison would perhaps help here).

Some people are happy to trust to habit by going through a routine of closing, saving, syncing etc. every time they switch devices.

I personally find that reliance on routine does put me off using a mobile device, but I do occasionally. The main thing I forget to do is sync and close the mobile version, because I am so used to just picking up and putting down phone/iPad apps without closing them. I’m guessing that it probably isn’t feasible, but a background sync in the mobile app would possibly cure many people’s issues here.

I would definitely use it more if the process worked smoother, or at least had some automated conflicted file resolution. It would be great to just be able to pick up a mobile device when I’m away from the desktop version and scribble down some notes, but the process doesn’t lend itself to that sort of flexibility at present.

But, the main reason I want to use a mobile version is so that I can read through drafts and make edits, and sadly, the lack of a revision mode on the mobile version puts me off using it further.

I have looked at many web-based pieces of writing software thinking it would be great to be able to write seamlessly from all my different devices, but they are all so far behind the desktop version of Scrivener on Mac. It is, in my opinion the best solution by far. I dock my MacBook Pro for the three monitor desktop experience, and then unplug one cable and I have a laptop I can take on the go. That seems about the best of both worlds for me, and I’m happy to stick with that.

[rms]

@ighulme

its reliance upon manual intervention seems to be the issue that polarises opinion about it.

Not at all my experience after many years of successful, automatic, synching (2 Macs, iPhone, and iPad).

[ighulme]

@rms

Not at all my experience after many years of successful, automatic, synching (2 Macs, iPhone, and iPad).

Does iOS Scrivener sync automatically? I thought that one had to manually sync, or at least return to back to the project screen.
I had thought that if I left iOS on a page I was editing, then the changes wouldn’t automatically sync. Forgive me if I’m wrong.

[rms]

Yea, I guess using your expectation about “manual”, you are correct. Never occured to me (never) while editing an individual document to press on the “sync” icon. I just always (always) close the project and let iOS Scrivener do it automatically for me. Having to press that sync button in a particular file for me is not ever used and surely is not a show stopper worthy of criticism. But I accept you don’t like it.

[tiffysquid]

As a former tech support worker, I understand what you mean. You’d like to blame user error. It’s easier than asking engineers and designers to take responsibility for badly designed processes.

Even if the many, many users who have problems with Scrivener/Dropbox/iOS syncing are failing to read or follow the instructions properly? As a former information architect / engineering collaborator (creative lead), as a former tech help writer, I can also assure you that often the cause of “user error” is actually bad design, poor UI/UX, and insufficient support materials.

Ighulme wrote, "I think the conclusion that I have come to is that while sync does work, its reliance upon manual intervention seems to be the issue that polarises opinion about it.

I have read on many forums that lots of people never make use of the sync feature, and the process of going through conflicted files if something happens is a huge headache (some automated file comparison would perhaps help here)."

Very nice. We can blame the users, or acknowledge that the system as it stands is insufficient. Maybe both.

Posts like yours, unfortunately, do not help. If you’re not here to help people like myself and Ighulme, perhaps you should just stay out of the conversation. You can’t put us at gunpoint. You can’t force us to believe that the contortions required to sync devices in Scrivener is a feature not a bug.

You also can’t force me to think it’s worth it – taking all the time to do the poorly designed syncing method, step by careful step. The mistakes that emerge occasionally are simply not worth the time. I’d rather not-sync. Better still, I’d like Scrivener to design something more in keeping with the current decade.

[kewms]

@tiffysquid

As a former tech support worker, I understand what you mean. You’d like to blame user error. It’s easier than asking engineers and designers to take responsibility for badly designed processes.

No, mostly I’m blaming flaky internet connections and questionable Dropbox default settings. Those are responsible for the overwhelming majority of issues that I actually see.

@tiffysquid

If you’re not here to help people like myself and Ighulme, perhaps you should just stay out of the conversation.

You didn’t ask for help, you came to vent. If you have a specific issue that you’re willing to describe in enough detail to facilitate troubleshooting, I’ll be happy to do what I can.

[kewms]

@ighulme

I would definitely use it more if the process worked smoother, or at least had some automated conflicted file resolution.

There actually is automated conflict resolution. In most cases, Scrivener will notify you that it has identified and resolved a conflict. If Scrivener asks you to resolve a conflict manually, that means the automatic mechanism has failed.

[kewms]

@ighulme

Does iOS Scrivener sync automatically? I thought that one had to manually sync, or at least return to back to the project screen.

FWIW, in my experience with applications that do sync “automatically,” one is never quite sure whether synchronization has actually taken place. For instance, it’s not at all unusual for me to get to the store and discover that the grocery list on my phone doesn’t match the one on my computer. iCloud in particular is somewhat notorious for taking its own sweet time with uploads/downloads, and providing effectively no indication of its status.

[ighulme]

@kewms

There actually is automated conflict resolution.

Yes, I meant more for a side-by-side comparison of text differences, such as the system used in something like Beyond Compare.

I seem to remember that something like that is possible in Scrivener by making the files into snapshots, but it seemed quite convoluted and I forgot how to do it after the first time.

Being presented with a conflict folder full of text files can be quite overwhelming if one doesn’t have the tools to compare them. That is one reason why I always do edits in a different colour - so that I have a chance of spotting them if anything goes wrong.

[tiffysquid]

Actually, no, I did not come here to “vent.” Nor did I come here to troubleshoot a clearly broken process that, as user Ighulme noted, requires too much manual intervention for many users. Being one of those users does not somehow make me wrong or bad. No need to 'splain me down for having experiences and opinions. I just like processes and procedures that work smoothly.

So I am not here to vent. I actually came here to let a user, Ighulme, know that their frustrations and confusions are shared, and to explain how I handle the problem (which is avoiding sync). I would not want Ighulme to go through the nightmare scenario of fixing improperly synced files and losing work. My own similar situations sucked.

In the freelance writers forum I’m part of, people have lost much, much more work than I did, and had to rebuild enormous manuscripts and hours’, days’ worth of edits. Why would I want that for Ighulme? I don’t.

[kewms]

@ighulme

I seem to remember that something like that is possible in Scrivener by making the files into snapshots, but it seemed quite convoluted and I forgot how to do it after the first time.

There’s an option to take snapshots before incorporating Mobile changes. See the Scrivener → Settings → Sharing → Sync tab. You might find that helpful.

From your posts above, it’s unclear what you’re actually doing. Are you syncing between desktop Scrivener and iOS, or are you syncing between desktop devices? For the latter, it’s pretty important to make sure that the project is closed on device A before being opened on device B. Sync on desktop devices is entirely a cloud service/operating system operation. See this article for best practices:
https://scrivener.tenderapp.com/help/kb/cloud-syncing/using-scrivener-with-cloud-sync-services

[kewms]

@tiffysquid

In the freelance writers forum I’m part of, people have lost much, much more work than I did, and had to rebuild enormous manuscripts and hours’, days’ worth of edits.

I’m sure you appreciate how impossible it is to comment on problems we haven’t seen, happening to people who haven’t contacted us.

[nickjbedford]

I’m an experienced and literate computer user and software developer myself going on 15-20 years. I know what I’m doing, how cloud synchronisation even works, and I’m very careful to completely exit Scrivener and wait for sync to happen when moving back and forth my macOS and iPad (to do most of the actual writing).

Just this morning I found myself resolving resolved conflicts with documents I didn’t even do anything to except look at briefly (opening the document in the binder). It actually wiped my last chapter scene document (empty) and I had to make sure to find one of 3 recent versions it somehow had a hold of. I did everything by the book between using the iPad then moving over to macOS the next morning to sync and backup the project.

It’s gotten to a point where I will backup the project as well before opening Scrivener on macOS. Then back it up once I’ve resolved conflicts. It’s madness.

In 2024, syncing rich text documents and doing merging should be a solved problem. This is a git user speaking here. Merge conflicts happen, but they will only happen when you’ve actually made changes on both ends before syncing together. 98% of the time I have been one-device-at-a-time-with-sync yet it still happens.

L&L offering Dropbox sync and despite requiring flawless operation between systems by mostly non-power users like me, then blaming users for using Dropbox sync in a world of cloud synchronisation and a necessity for regular backups isn’t the coolest.

I get by and make it work but I have to be very careful every time I play with fire syncing between platforms on this software. I have a backup shell script which ZIPs, date stamps and copies the project to two different iCloud and Google Drive for safe keeping.

I wonder if the new barebones app in development will be able to offer unproblematic sync?

[rms]

Probably worth requesting support assistance from L&L on this …