So I am having trouble syncing between my iPhone and Linux Computer running Fedora.
My initial problem seemed to be that some folders would be updated, and others wouldn’t. My .scriv file and Files folders weren’t modified, but the Mobile and Settings folders were modified by my phone edits….
I’m now suspecting that the issue is that I moved the file to the Dropbox folder directly rather than saving through Scrivener, but that’s just it… when I am in Scrivener, I cannot see the Dropbox folder in the File Explorer, to save the file to that folder. On my computer I see Dropbox as an option, but not through Scrivener directly….
The work around I have found is that I can access my phone edits when I moved the Scriv folder in Dropbox back to my computer… However this is a clunky solution to physically move the file back and forth each time I want to switch devices.
That specifically would be normal. The mobile version does not touch the original project. It mirrors any data it needs to modify and puts it into the Mobile folder (and yes, it does save a few settings too). This way you can leave the desktop version open while you go off with the phone to make some coffee or whatever.
I’m now suspecting that the issue is that I moved the file to the Dropbox folder directly rather than saving through Scrivener…
That should make no difference.
I’m now suspecting that the issue is that I moved the file to the Dropbox folder directly rather than saving through Scrivener, but that’s just it… when I am in Scrivener, I cannot see the Dropbox folder in the File Explorer, to save the file to that folder.
I don’t know enough about Dropbox on Linux/Fedora to say what is going on there, though what you are describing kind of sounds like the tortured runaround you have to do to figure out where your actual files are, on a Mac. I.e. it fakes it in the GUI, but the actual save location is buried in .local or something.
On that, what I did to track down where it was actually syncing to was by adding a text file called “xxxxxxx.txt” using the file manager, and then on the command line, use find to track down where it actually is in your user folder. Then you can make a symlink pointing to that location, and make it available to all software and not just GUI stuff (of which software running through Wine may not be aware of). So maybe something like troubleshooting trick that would be of help to you.
On my computer I see Dropbox as an option, but not through Scrivener directly….
That aside, didn’t the installer add a file association to your file manager so you can just double-click on .scrivx files to load them? If that works, ultimately it might be easier to turn on the Show full project path in title bar setting, in the Appearance: General Interface options tab. If Dropbox is being weird, maybe it is in ~/.local/share/dropbox/blahBlah or something.
Thank you for clearing up the question of saving to the folder as compared to saving from Scrivener, which I couldn’t do since I couldn’t find the folder through the file explorer through Scrivener….
I looked at the properties of the Dropbox folder in the UI and it says that it is home/shb/, which is where it appears in my UI. I also tried your suggestion of the text file, which didn’t turn out a different result. Then I tried the terminal, and it also says that it is located in the location it appears to be. So weird!
I’m left wondering, why might Scrivener not show the Dropbox folder…?
To avoid any potential confusion with Wine’s “Desktop” metaphor getting in the way, which simulates Microsoft’s kind of abstracted file system you get in File Explorer (the whole “My Documents”, “My Pictures” thing, which doesn’t actually exist anywhere), I’d expand the “/” entry in the sidebar, which should show your root folder contents, and then drill down to home/shb/Dropbox. If you can’t see it there then I have no clue. The only thing that shouldn’t show up that way are of course .hidden directories.
Of course that’s a bit of a bother to use on a regular basis, I mention it more as a sanity check. The best approach is to open winecfg, and in the Drives tab, check which drive letter it mapped to your home folder. You can even make your own drive letter here that goes straight to Dropbox too. I have a couple I use for common directories, so I can just type “y:” to jump straight to them when saving/loading projects.
I figured it out! It was in the hidden directories. Beyond that, I needed to create a shortcut link to Dropbox in my Scrivener directory, as, with my set up, Scrivener can only see folders that have shortcut links in its local location.
Also had to figure out how to create a shortcut link, which has been a problem for a while. In my file explorer I needed to go into the hamburger menu > preferences and turn on the ability to create a link, before I saw this as an option. Once I moved that link into the folder with the other links, it now syncs across the two devices. Thank you for your help/thoughts, AmberV!
That should work, yeah. If you look at the contents of that folder you should see most of the data directories are symbolic links back to your main user folder. So that’s the typical way of going about it.
My suggestion to put your Dropbox folder (and indeed even the Scrivener sync folder itself, within that) onto a drive letter, is just another way of going about it.
Super curious about the Drive letter option. Seems elegant. Haven’t heard of that before. I’m hesitant to try it now, because it is working, but if any other problems come up, or on another day once my bandwidth is replenished, I’d be curious to give it a try. It would be a lot easier to find. Scrivener’s current link location is a rabbit hole!
To be honest I kind of forgot about how Wine has its own buried user folder; it really is a rabbit hole to get to. I’ve had things mapped to my main user folder for so long, I just open stuff right out of my normal working areas. The only time I go into the drive_c/blah area is to check out AppData type stuff.
The drive letter setup stuff is pretty simple once you know where it is, I would say. Perhaps the trickier part would be opening winecfg itself to the right prefix, but something like this should do it, if for some reason it loads the system default prefix rather than the “Scrivener” your bottle manager set it up in:
I wouldn’t touch what is already there, as your configuration might need them (certainly, C:), but I showed what adding a D: could look like, as well as an X: to your whole main user folder, if that isn’t already mapped.
