Open Scrivener project on different networked Mac ?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Sorry if this has been asked before. I searched but could not find anything on it.

Are there any potential problems with me using Scrivener on my iMac and opening a project on my MacBook Pro across my home wireless network?

Thank you.

2

Make sure the project is not open on both systems at once, and you should be fine.

Also, I’d recommend storing backups from both systems in non-networked locations. That way, even if something bad happens because of a network error, you should have a recoverable copy.

Katherine

3

Thanks kewms.

I’ll make sure that both copies are not opened at the same time. I guess it’s a bit like the rules for Dropbox syncing (which uses LAN anyway).

I have a shell script making a timestamped backup (to a maximum of five) every night, so that should be OK.

Thanks again.

4

Yes, very much so. From Scrivener’s point of view, there’s nothing special about Dropbox. Any mechanism that allows multiple instances of Scrivener to access the same project at the same time will raise similar concerns.

Katherine

5

Just to add that, to my amazement, I appear to be able to open and edit Scrivener projects on the MacBook Pro, using Scrivener on my iMac, while the MacBook Pro is asleep! Well, the lid is closed, so I assumed it was asleep. Is this normal? It won’t, er, do any harm will it?

6

As long as Scrivener on the MacBook Pro is closed, you should be fine. The one thing that might cause a problem would be a sudden network outage, such as might happen with a power failure.

Katherine

7

Well actually I meant generally, not just with Scrivener … being able to edit stuff on a MacBook Pro when its lid is closed and you assume it’s asleep…

8

Being able to share files, fetch new mail, run backups, and other functions while sleeping is a feature of Mac OS X on supported hardware.

support.apple.com/en-us/HT204032

I’d like to back up kewms’ point though: an interruption in the networking could result in lost data, such as an inability to save changes. You could be having an intermittent network interruption once ever 3 days without knowing it, because most (all?) internet-aware programs these days are built with the idea that packets of data might not flow steadily all the time. Scrivener is not built to handle short hiccups in network connectivity; it expects the files it’s reading from and writing to to be available immediately. It’s like keeping a file on a thumb drive that you randomly yank out of the usb port and then plug back in.

This is why I prefer to use Cubby or Dropbox to do syncing, even if the computers are on the same network; writing to and reading from files happens on the hard drive, and the transmission of new and changed files happens separately from Scrivener’s operations.