A post was split to a new topic: What software do you use to write with these days?
I understand, however my real world has been discipline whenever working with tech for 40+ years. the auto close mentioned by @kewms is always the backup for a fail to close on Mac in the very few cases when I’ve been multi-tasking and forgot about the Scrivener window in the background. As for iPad, I’ve never felt that rushed when friends/cab/etc arrived that I’ve had to slam the cover shut and not hit Synch.
Different work flows I guess. I can see that any non-automated process doesn’t work for everyone.
Lighter note, I retired from Apple last week, so perhaps my disciplined approach is about to go out the window. Funnily enough, while I find Dropbox just fine for my needs, you won’t find it on Apple internal systems. Only a couple of companies made the grade.
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Four years later, that prediction hasn’t come true.
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Congrats!
This thread has been going on for a decade, for reasons that utterly baffle me. And it has nothing to do with “why hasn’t Mark done this yet” because that is the wrong question.
When I read the docs about Scrivener, in no place does it ever mention being an instant sync, open anywhere application. It talks about features that no other writing tool has. It has a defined market serving defined needs. Backup of your files is one of them. “Open anywhere instantly in sync” is not one of them.
It is clear that you want a tool which syncs anywhere, instantly. There are dozens of such tools available, and you can use them. They don’t have Scrivener’s features because they are aimed at a different problem. They utilize file update mechanisms unsuited to Scrivener’s use case.
So when you reduce it, the problem here is that you want two different apps, written for two different sets of needs, to solve two completely different problems for you at a fixed, one-time price. The fact that no other application exists which can solve both problems is perhaps a hint why the continued bashing on Mark is old and tiring.
Yes, I’d like a dog walker who ironed my clothes and tuned my car too. There are reasons why these skills don’t manifest in the same human at a price point I’m willing to pay 
But what really makes this so completely impossible for me to understand, is that there are SOOOOOO many apps which are really good at the instant sync bits. I have one I use for this. When the bits become coordinated enough for a story I’m working on, I copy them into Scrivener and start knocking out the text.
Use the tools for what they are good at. And enjoy only having to pay a small fixed price once a decade. It’s like $3 a year if you do the math. I pay that much every month to the app I use for the instant syncing.
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“Open anywhere instantly in sync” isn’t possible in any Internet setting. Folks who believe iCloud can do that are deluded. I have used iCloud to sync between iOS and Mac Scrivener, and it was very far from instantaneous. iCloud and the iOS Files app — both written, maintained, and hosted by Apple — took several minutes to update a Scrivener project, and it didn’t give me a clear indication of when it was done.
It’s a good thing, not a bad one, that Dropbox isn’t more trusted than it is.
The ironic thing here is that the “instant sync” writing software that is often seen as the most direct competitor to Scrivener (Software That Must Not Be Named, or STMNBN) gets the same kind of flack that Scrivener gets, but from the other side:
“When are you going to give up Markdown?”
“We need rich text!”
“What about a corkboard feature?”
“Why don’t you have more/eliminate Dropbox support?”
These are posted in their App Store reviews as STMNBN doesn’t have a company-hosted forum (they probably got fed up with it.)
I’ve seen iCloud take 45 minutes to an hour to figure out how to sync a single-word edit in a simple .scap file. I’ve seen it silently obliterate conflict versions in .txt files—and that was just with me creating a quarantined temporary account in order to test iCloud on. How anyone trusts it with their work is beyond me; I would never enable it on an active account, let alone use it.
There are a lot of complaints about sync malfunctions as well, everywhere, no matter the underlying technology. It’s almost as if there is something tricky about the usage of complex synchronisation systems that cannot be solved by high level client software sitting on top of them. Hmmm.
Whatever the case, the grass will always be greener everywhere else. As for Scrivener’s approach—it was deliberately designed the way it works with the full knowledge that it would never be ideal for those that value syncing without buttons. We knew that back in 2016, and went with it anyway as a calculated move. That people are still remarking upon how it doesn’t work for those that cannot stand buttons is unsurprising.
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That’s simply not true. There are tools which are designed and guaranteed to ensure safe sync. They utilize versioned files and an online datastore of file hashes, etc. They are designed such that you could never walk away from a node, or shut it down quickly, and lose any data. These solve this problem very well, but are focused exclusively on this problem. And due to the logistics and constant development required to solve this problem they are universally subscription apps costing more per year than I pay L&L every decade.
You know very well that the internet is not instantaneous. Frequently, it is slow. If “open anywhere instantly in sync” seems to work, it’s a hat trick.
You picked your battles. You’ve made this point very, very clear and I totally agree with your stance. I don’t understand why people think that trolling here wanting a completely different service in an insanely cheap (and awesome!) writing app is going to accomplish. Scrivener doesn’t butter your toast either
…and I appreciate L&L’s focus on what does matter for writing.
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There are approaches you can take to mitigate sync damage, but I’m not aware of anything that can withstand all forms of desync. There are just fundamental problems that can arise from editing the same data points from multiple offline devices and then bringing them all on at once, for example.
But as for versioning and hashing—we do that. There are multiple checkpoints and failsafes in Scrivener’s format that look for desyncs and engage recovery options when needed. Versioning is optional, but can be added in the Sharing: Sync preference pane via the snapshots feature. Even without that though, where data points conflict we offer full binder review and selection tools, as well as item-by-item resolution in the software.
What Scrivener can’t do though, is conjure data out of nothing, and some sync usage errors will result in that, or will result in scenarios where one increments the notion of what is “latest” on what is actually older, and loses data that way. In such cases, that is why we have the project backup option on pre-sync enabled by default, which can help in some cases, but not all.
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I tried Google Drive for a while (but not for Scrivener projects!) and found, for instance, that a few ordinary jpegs refused to sync for weeks and Google tech support had no clue why, no workaround, nothing.
You are verging on, if not far past insulting. Applications which apply for a lock, create a new version, sync, unlock can guarantee that you get the entire data. It is a solvable problem, as can be shown by dozens of apps that can provide that kind of service. The problem is that the difficulty of providing this kind of guaranteed service is rarely worth the cost of it, nor are most people in need of it.
Which is perhaps to the core of what you mean: “if any free service claims…” would be more realistic and less insulting. It’s a very easy (algorithmically) problem to solve. It’s a very difficult service to provide without significant and widespread (e.g. costly) resources to provide that sync.
Slow, guaranteed sync of all updates is likewise plausible with something designed for it.
Simple example: Slack. If you push a message on Slack, it will be visible on any other Slack client. As long as you are connected to the service and successfully push, delivery is guaranteed. You are never left with a situation where you think a message was sent but others cannot read it.
I work in a field that provides guaranteed contextual information based on whatever you are doing on any of your devices at any time. If you can use the service, we update your recommendations in less than a second. These are not unsolvable problems, but they are hard problems to solve at scale and without significant costs. (we pick our own battles–data sync is incredibly important to us, customer identification not at all, etc)
To be clear: I believe that L&L’s priorities are absolutely correct. I’m not complaining about your priorities (or anything else). I’m just (wasting everyone’s time) pointing out that because it’s not available in free sync services doesn’t make it technically impossible.
It is possible to ensure sync state of any one thing, or the entire thing. A hash of the entire state at any one point in time is possible. It is neither timely, nor always simple to resolve when conflicts occur. Scrivener’s focus is on being easy to use and fast. You could sync every single character change to a new git hash and store in history and solve the synchronization problem forever. The app would be totally unusable
All the apps that do guarantee sync have significant limitations of the type and size of data they sync.
Any given need is possible. But each of humans with limited hours in the day have to pick which combinations of needs are what we think we can address. You cannot sync complete versions of Jigabytes of data across oceans–Light doesn’t move fast enough for that to be possible. But there are numerous solutions to keep Jigabytes of data in guaranteed consistency across oceans. You pick the problem, you pick what you can accomplish and what you can’t.
They can guarantee that you get all the data, but they can’t guarantee when you get it, because they don’t control your internet connection. And so they can say “this file hasn’t synced yet, there may be a newer version somewhere else,” but they can’t necessarily provide that newer version.
If you disconnect from the internet with unsynched changes, you are stuck. There is no power on earth that can prevent you from creating a synchronization conflict. (Short of locking you out of the application entirely, I guess.) There are a variety of different ways to detect that a conflict exists and minimize its impact, but the situation that created the conflict is outside of any software’s control.
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What does your service do if the customer’s internet connection fails?
That’s a situation that very few of the “instant sync” arguments seem to consider, but it’s an absolute requirement for Scrivener. Many writers prefer to disconnect from the internet while writing, and many writers have unreliable connections some or all of the time. Scrivener has to be able to handle that situation, which means that Scrivener cannot assume (much less guarantee) that the local copy and the server copy are identical.
FWIW, iCloud routinely fails to synchronize my grocery list. Which is stored in Reminders (an Apple application) and shared exclusively between Apple devices, all of which connect to the internet via always-on gigabit-level fiber (+ wifi, for the iOS devices).
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You are absolutely correct. As ex Apple, I can confirm exactly what you describe is a daily occurrence and the basis of endless hours of support calls.
The crazy part comes when said customer demands a new iPad, iPhone, Mac because of this issue, and no amount of explaining it’s the internet/iCloud will convince them the device is not at fault.
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Poor customers – there they are, all excited they have an excuse to buy a nice shiny new gadget and you try to take away their alibi… (“But my Darling, of course I need a new one, this one’s thingy is broken. I’m just as upset as you are, but what can you do?”)
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You seem to be operating with odd definitions of the words “anywhere” and “instantly” in the phrase “open anywhere instantly in sync”. That “anywhere” doesn’t include my office when the ISP cuts out, and I don’t see how my belief in Relativity is an insult to anyone.