Playing around inside the .scriv package is potentially risky, yes. But you took a backup first. And when you know that you’ve played around in it, you can immediately check to make sure everything is okay. Which it was.
The real messes happen when third-party software pokes around inside the package without the user knowing that anything untoward is going on until after (sometimes months after) the fact.
(Well, there was the guy who gave all the component files human readable names, and then couldn’t figure out why the project didn’t work anymore. But such extreme examples are rare.)
So I gather that any potential problems should be quite obvious from the start ?. Not some part of the project corrupt which I would discover weeks or months later. I mean usually. I know that not everything is 100%.
It depends on what you change and how aware you are of what you’re doing. Deleting snapshots is a big, obvious change, and snapshots are by design somewhat segregated from the rest of the project.
Certainly there are other changes you could make that are less obvious and more potentially damaging. But no, I’m not going to tell people how to mangle their projects in a public forum.
Many of the prominent third-party sync services seem to want to “help” by making it default with different nomeclature and hidden menus to undo it. Just my “opinion”, though!
Do you do this manually by Documents → Snapshots → Show Snapshots Manager → select by clicking → delete
or do you have a way to use the search box to filter everything except for the last snapshot ?
thank you
Drmajorbob is right using zip backups to update project changes is better than snapshots. When I was actively writing my first book moved my saved copies of project to 25 per project. I do use snapshots during the editing process to have copy of each phase of changes as edit. But is solely a book (my research for the book in another project) my 140,000 word book with 2-3 snapshots per scene is 16.2 mgs backup (windows). I do have 25 zip backups of project on dropbox.
Yes, I do it manually, per document, from within Scrivener.
If there was an automated way to do it, I wouldn’t use it : there might always be the case where for one document you’d want to keep extra specific snapshots.
And I do it from within the inspector. I don’t use the snapshot manager as I find it not as easy to handle. Plus, if I am not mistaken, using the snapshot manager you have to confirm each delete (Windows version); where in the inspector you can tell Scrivener to just go ahead with the operation without a popup confirmation window.
I understand the way you work, and at the same time I am a bit surprised. If I spend a few hours writing and editing a document, and want to save from time to time, project → save seems to be a bit of an overkill in comparison with a manual snapshot ⌘5, but you are the expert, not me.
I can even clean up the snapshots at the end of the day if I want.
I save project as zip to dropbox, and now end up with zipped projects using up a lot of space.
I have my Scrivener set to make backups zips on open and close and to save 25 (max). I save backups to a folder on my local NAS. Every so often during long writing sessions I simply quit Scrivener. It dutifully saves all unsaved changes, makes a backup. Most of the time I get up, stretch, and maybe make more coffee while that goes on. if i do not leave the computer I notice the whole process takes very few seconds. I never save or make snapshots. And i never have the trouble you have.
@dorindon
If you use my method, make sure you treat that backup as it deserves.
Make it be a special backup. In the sense that
1- you want to name it accordingly
2- you don’t want to just let it sit where all other backups are, so that it doesn’t get deleted once you reach the maximum number of backups set in the options.
3- Best to backup that backup. Worse case scenario, if you don’t really have a complete backup routine, email it to yourself. (Of course, given the current size of your actual project, that won’t work. It is way too big for an email. But it should do for the future. Else, use google drive or something.)
You can use the “backup to” function to pick a location and a name, or just handle it afterwards in windows’ explorer (or the Mac equivalent).
It is a fact that it would be bad for both me and Literature & Latte if a large corporation with lots of lawyers decided to take legal exception to my opinions about their product.
But it is also a fact that I aggressively disable smart synchronization for all services on all systems that I personally use.
