As has been stated previously, iOS doesn’t have a shared filesystem the way that desktop OSs do. Due to security concerns and sandboxing, each app can only access its own data. (There are some exceptions to this, but that’s all they are, exceptions, and they are not suitable for using with your day-to-day Scrivener projects.)
Mac OS and Windows both allow background tasks to be running, iOS does not. This means that Scrivener on Mac OS and Windows doesn’t have to incorporate a large amount of sync-specific code; you download and run the DropBox client separately and it syncs your files with the local hard drive on its own thread in the background. Scrivener has nothing to do with it. If it takes a while to sync your DropBox folder, you aren’t as likely to notice, because it’s behind the scenes.
As a result in iOS, when Scrivener is the active application, all the other applications you have are suspended and not running. That DropBox client isn’t running in the background. That’s why Scrivener has the explicit steps to sync and why it has to have a bunch of the DropBox-specific code in the Scrivener app. Now, you have to wait for the sync to happen so that the files are written into Scrivener’s data space where it can get to them. Even if DropBox was running in the background, Scrivener wouldn’t be able to get to that data.
This is why the recommendation is to have two separate folders on DropBox – one for your Scrivener projects that you want to sync at all, and one just for the ones you are actively working on with iOS. Unless you manage your files directly to limit the number of projects visible to the iOS client, it will still have to enumerate through them and wait for DropBox to sync them – whether you’re opening them or not. This is why an automatic project list wouldn’t help you – Scrivener would still have to reach out to DropBox to enumerate what was in your folder.
Ironically enough, at some point after the iOS version was released, a user had the exact opposite request. I don’t remember if this was on Mac forum or Windows forum, but this person wanted the desktop version to implement the same up front project list as the iOS version, because it was so much simpler than the way projects are managed on the desktop!
And similar explanations ensued, but in reverse, of how L&L was forced to implement it this way due to iOS limitations as compared to Mac/Win… So this thread is sort of the reverse version of that one. :mrgreen:
I have to admit I didn’t realize how hard it is to try to explain something on a forum like this one where everyone has such different backgrounds so let me try with a use case.
I am working on a scrivener project with three other people none of whom live in my time zone, some use window some use Mac and I have just discovered that the iOS version will read and write both formats without fuss.
Dropbox is our shared repository, I can’t change the file structure within dropbox because in most cases I am a contributor not owner of the project .
A progress meeting starts and Jane asks me if I have seen her latest changes to document x, I haven’t so if I am near a Mac or pc I open the project in scrivener and review the changes, no problem.
If I am using the iOS version I open scrivener app and am presented with a large list of projects, lets say ten projects and it asks if I want to sync. I have to sync of course because I am being asked about the latest changes so I select sync now.
the dialog now shows over ten thousand files being synced even though I really only wanted to open one project and by the time this is finished (usually over ten minutes) the meeting has either moved on to an unrelated topic or has ended.
regardless of whose fault this is (apple, L&L or DB or mine).
so for me the iOS version is not useable in its current form because syncing with dropbox is an all or nothing proposition which for me is not workable.
Hopefully this is a better explanation than my previous attempt and if anyone has any suggestions I would like that as the iOS ability to open both v2 and v3 scrivener files is compelling.
Well, having multiple people edit the same Scrivener project at the same time is a terrible idea in the first place. If that’s your use case, you might be better off with another tool.
I still don’t see why it isn’t possible to simply put the projects you’re actively working on in a separate subfolder within Dropbox, which would be the optimal way to address the issue and doesn’t require a complete redesign of the iOS file system.
If we take those constraints as a given, though, the solution is simple: make sure iOS Scrivener is fully synchronized a few minutes before your meeting starts.
It’s no ones ‘fault’, just the reality of the iOS structure. If it’s synching more than the one project when you hit Synch, then multiple projects have been edited by someone since the last synch.
Are you collaborating on just one project, or multiple projects?
If just one project, then ensuring only that project is in the Scrivener folder iOS looks for is the answer. If multiple projects, there’s no way around the ‘issue’.
Again, no one’s fault, just the reality of the different operating systems.
Unless Apple changes iOS file management, I am not aware of anything anyone can do.
Of course many of us wish for Apple to implement ‘iPad Pro TabletOS’ version of iOS (or features within iOS that activate on the Pro’s to take advantage of the horsepower which we wish might include a more robust and directly accessible file system, but that wouldn’t help those who write on iPhone or the standard iPads, and might make life a nightmare for Keith.
I have lost count of the number of times when people on various forums have suggested features or changes to software that seemed straightforward but turned out to be vastly more complicated than originally thought. In 30+ years of using computers I find it is usually me that has to adapt, not the software.
A differential backup is called a backup throughout the IT industry because it’s not the same as a revision control system. CSV, Subversion, and git GIT repositories are revision control. Backups that include a historical record of files that have changed and or been deleted are exactly what define the term “backup”. Even a copy of your files on a thumb drive can be considered a backup if you don’t synchronize changes to the original with it automatically upon insertion. I sit 10 feet away from systems administrators who are routinely asked to restore files from backup; if all they had were RAID arrays and sync software, they wouldn’t be able to restore anything.
And it is on topic when someone claims that dropbox synchronization + RAID array is a backup strategy in a discussion about dropbox. Apple’s time machine software backup is a proper backup. Dropbox synchronizes changes as they are made, and is not a backup. RAID arrays only ensure that you can (usually) keep your data safe from a hardware failure.