Would it be possible to add an option when creating a zip backup (on iOS) where a txt compile of the manuscript is automatically included at the root of the backup zip file?
Thanks for your consideration.
The purpose of a backup is to capture the state of the Scrivener project, so that it can be recovered using another copy of Scrivener. Adding anything else to the ZIP file would break this capability.
Katherine
I still think that having an option to include a compiled version within the backup zip file would be useful. If for no other reason, it would allow the full manuscript to be available on a computer that didn’t have Scrivener installed, without the need to each time purposefully compile a separate file.
I am by no means an expert on Scrivener’s file system, but am surprised that adding a single text file would break the backup zip. Could this text file not be automatically ignored when opening the project within Scrivener if it were to cause trouble?
Why are you sending a complete project backup to a computer that doesn’t have Scrivener? Some people have enormous amounts of research material: why ship that all over the place when a compiled draft is all you need? Compiling a large project can also take a significant amount of time.
If you stick the compiled document inside the project folder, it will be invisible: neither Mac OS nor iOS will show the individual files inside a project, and Scrivener itself won’t see it because it isn’t listed in the Binder.
If you put it outside the project folder, then your backup will need to nest the actual project inside another folder that contains the compiled file. This will mean that someone restoring the backup needs an additional step to actually recover their project. Since someone recovering a backup file is probably already in a very stressful situation, adding steps is a bad idea.
Katherine
That’s why I said that it should be an option, for those of us who would benefit from having a compiled version in each zip. But as this suggestion evidently seems unfeasible, I’ll just compile it myself each time.
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