I’m testing Scapple (and like it very much) and like to work with the latest beta of Scrivener to use the drag and drop option of Scapple. Is there anything I should pay special attention to while using the Scrivener beta? Can I just override my current version (2.3.1) with the beta or should I install both? Will the beta upgrade automatically when the final version is out? I have a “normal” version of Scrivener purchased through your webstore.
Sorry, these might be silly questions, but I have no experience with Scrivener beta versions. A short answer would be great!
This is a stable beta, it’s mostly bug fixes, so it is safe to use as your standard version. I use it daily, myself, for production work. So yes, you can just overwrite your normal copy in the Applications folder. If you wanted to you could rename it to “Scrivener Beta” or something, and that would be fine as well. They’ll both share preferences and run seamlessly in alternation. When the official version is published, you’ll might get the normal update notice if you have that feature set to alert you. I never use that method to update, myself, so I might be wrong about that. Worst case you’d just download from the website to update at that time.
Yes, you will get the normal update alert. That’s why I name the 2.4 beta “2.3.5” instead of “2.4b”, because by naming it “2.3.5”, when I release 2.4, the automatic updater can easily see that it is a newer version and update it for you.
Scrivener 2.x betas are always stable, because they are generally minor updates, but in this case the latest beta is in fact more stable than the 2.3. We found a nasty bug that could lose data in certain situations in 2.3, when scrivenings mode was being used and Scrivener was left open for more than two days, which has been fixed in the latest beta. So I want to get 2.4 out pretty soon. In the meantime, the latest beta is definitely the best thing to use.