Yep, rdale. It would’ve been easier had you said that. And yes, I still think it is insane.
In 2006, Apple had a slogan that said: “It just works.” Now, anyone who used Apple products knew that wasn’t totally true. But they certainly held up far better than the competition.
Sure, what you tell us to do so that co-authors can work on a document together isn’t difficult to achieve. But the end result isn’t very effective. It’s also a pain in the a$$. Especially when there is another piece of software out there that can collaborate very effectively. Is it the same as Scrivener? Nope. Will it allow me to collaborate with my writing partner? Yep.
Hmm… which will I choose… Hmmm…
The fact is, the simple answer to “How do I use Scrivener 3 with two authors?” is: You don’t. I’m pretty sure Keith would agree with that evaluation.
Don’t presume to speak for Keith, none of the rest of us do.
Your statement as such is incorrect. There are a a few people who are members of the forums who use Scrivener 3 to work on projects with other authors.
They just don’t do so simultaneously without understanding the project structure, limitations, benefits, and remediation steps.
My co-writer and I have developed a method using DropBox that works pretty well.
But it’s still tricky. We have a master Scriv file in a DB shared folder. To edit/write/revise we copy it inside that folder, and immediately drag the copy to a local folder.
Once revised locally, we text, alerting that the master file will be updated (this keeps the other person from opening it independently), then open the master file, drag the new docs into the master, and move the older docs to an ‘Older’ folder inside the master.
We also initial and date the new docs in the doc title (Scriv updates the mod date if you only look at the doc funny, which is not helpful at all).
Also, revisions by me are labeled with a red icon, by her with a yellow one.
Then the revising author closes the master file on the shared folder. That saves it, and the mod date changes. Then the other person knows the change is complete, by checking the mod date of the Scriv file.
In March of this year I used Scrivener 3 to work on a creative writing project with 72 other authors. We wrote seven books together in a single day, including all writing every single word of prose, and compiling all seven versions into epub, kindle and pdf finished products. Scapple was used for some of the plot development, but the only other software used on the day was Photoshop to produce the front cover images.
So in response to the assertion that Scrivener isn’t good for collaboration, my response is is simple: It works exceptionally well for me.
That sounds like a complex case study! Would you mind briefly sharing how you coordinated, synthesized, and deconflicted the authorial inputs using Scrivener? Cheers!
I’m afraid it was nothing more complex than using compile to get materials out and import to get materials in.
The trick is not to confuse collaborating on writing a book with collaborating on writing a sentence. It’s all about dividing the tasks up so people are working to bring different things into the mix, not trying to do the same task at the same time. The former is like two people each grabbing an end of a sofa to help carry it up some stairs. The latter is like both people grabbing the same end! Not only is it not helping, you’re actually making it harder.