I use another program called iA Writer that has a “save to iCloud” function that allows you to synch documents between two computers and the iPhone. It is without a doubt the best synching tool I’ve used yet. I would love to see something like that with Scrivener.
The iA Writer synch to iClout is super easy, accurate and seamless between platforms.
Is this something new? The latest I heard from Apple is that this technology is platform limited, and in fact is even version/software limited on the Mac. Nobody using an older Mac can take advantage of it, and in fact even programs sold off of the Mac App Store cannot use it. So everyone with a direct sale copy of Scrivener wouldn’t be able to use it. Nobody using a mix of Windows and Mac would be able to use it. No Windows users at all. The only people this would benefit are late model Mac users who bought from the App Store. That’s the main reason for not looking into this right now seriously. There are other technical considerations as well, but those might change with time or be surmountable. The main problem is that Scrivener’s format is quite different from a text editor. It’s a whole lot easier to maintain two or more copies of a .txt file on a phone and a Mac, and pop up a warning if they get out of sync. With a multi-file format like Scrivener’s the complexity of the problem ramps up, and conflict resolution isn’t adequately handled (can you imaging having to click “This” or “That” buttons for 38 files with cryptic names you have no idea what purpose they serve?). You can also sync between devices using the File/Sync tools, so that chapter is a good read if you work mobile.
Anyway, that’s just a summary, please do search the forum for “iCloud” to find much more detailed analysis of the problems.
The most seamless, easy to use, and truly platform independent technology for syncing right now is Dropbox. It already works great with Scrivener and it doesn’t matter if you are on Windows XP, a Tiger/PPC G5 PowerMac, an iPhone, Android or 2012 iMac with Lion. It also has a background conflict resolution system that, while like all conflicts will cause problems, at least doesn’t require you to make up-front decisions as soon as you sit down with a new device after making a mistake. No need to wait for iCloud, you can already sync projects between computers. Do read “Scrivener Everywhere” in the user manual, though, for tips on avoiding conflicts. They are easy to avoid, but also easy to make, and can cause real headaches when they happen.
Hey AmberV,
Thanks so much for the explanation. Makes sense. I am enjoying the scrivener experience very much and in fact have chosen to use it over iA writer for this particular project (a novel) precisely because of how well Scrivener manages the complexity of the outline, chapters, etc.
To answer your question, I should clarify that by ‘platforms’ I meant my iPhone and my iMac. Obviously a jargon mistake on my part. It’s been a long time since I’ve used anything else. My expectations in terms of compatibility have been irrevocably skewed forever. Someday soon I expect the whole duplicate risk will be eliminated regardless of operating systems.
Thanks again for your attention to my question, I appreciate it. I’ll give the dropbox solution a shot.
A
You can currently sync your .scriv project to dropbox and access the files on the iPhone with IA Writer, work on them, and those changes will be synced back to your .scriv project. It’s a good solution for you, at least until iScrivener is released (name is my silly invention, of course) 
Yeah, using the File/Sync/with External Folder with a Dropbox folder, and an editor that can navigate and edit Dropbox files is a good way to take your manuscript on the go.
Maybe when computers can start outguessing us and doing our work for us. 
It’s a resolution that very much takes a human to resolve right now. It doesn’t matter what technology you are using to do the syncing, if you unplug device A and make changes to both it and device B, when you plug A back in they will be in conflict, and only you can decide which parts should be merged and which parts should not. That might sound obvious, but it can be subtle, what “unplugged” means in this context. It can be as simple as closing Scrivener and then sleeping your laptop a few seconds later. Little did you know that 10 or 12 files were still scheduled for upload. Now the server is out of date with this computer. If you switch to another computer and work on those bits of the project unbeknownst, the server and the second computer now have irrevocable changes made to those files, as well as those bits of project control files, such as the critical file that decides what order your scenes are in. Now you turn on your laptop. No automation can at that point determine which version of the 10 files it still needs to upload, are best, or more importantly, which bits of those files should be in the final merged copy. This can be difficult with some of the files that Scrivener works with because they are technical in nature. It’s easier to just avoid such problems entirely; always making sure synchronisation is complete in both directions whenever start and ending a session at a machine.
Locking?
Of course that means that you need to have an intelligent merge as well as a real “scriv-serve” to host the project. We just went from a portable solution to one that requires a huge dedicated infrastructure with 24x7 support (hardware and people) as well as a team to develop the various client and server communication channels.
I thought this through once and briefly looked into an abstracted FS that would allow seamless checkout/checkin with automated conflict detection and smart merging. Then my wife smacked me and made be go back to painting. That and I doubt anyone would want to pay for the service.
Locking is certainly the answer, but then we are talking about another kind of service entirely. It doesn’t provide the experience that most people expect of “the cloud”, that being, “let me do whatever I want and if I screw things up I’ll fix them later”. Locking would mean you get to the second computer and open up the project, but it won’t let you because a number of resources are inaccessible. As it stands, the project protocol does have a soft lock on it, if you happen to have not uploaded the user.lock file removal command before sleeping the computer, that would be your first clue that something is wrong, but since this is a removal command and not an upload, it most often gets filed and removed from the server before the beefier files are finished. I can’t think of a way around that from Scrivener’s angle, because by that point in time the project has potentially already been closed for over a minute.
If you want a more secure editing environment, then version control, or just pulling and pushing .zip files is the best way to go. Pull down the latest stuff manually. Work. Upload revisions to the server. That’s the sane way to approach this, but “cloud” isn’t really about being sane and prudent. It’s about being convenient at the expense of restricting working habits to good practices, and that is fundamentally incompatible with any non-human reconciliation in my opinion.
Actually my plan was soft locking using branch tagging with trunk merges on an “upload” type save. The local copy would be stored in the abstracted FS with automatic pull down on connect and automatic checkin on non-conflicted changes. We use a product in the office that provided some base ideas that i would have needed to build on.
The larger problem is that scriv (any app really) would need to be extended to utilize the full feature set of the FS. Since there would need to be a server side component the cost model started to get unreasonable fairly quickly. Now that AWS is really maturing I should take a second look at the idea.
That said I really see this in use in a larger, almost institutional, mode. An individual simply needs to pay attention to avoid problems. Granted money is money so …
Anywho I’m supposed to be writing a psych paper. This school stuff sucks.
You know, I read the above and, despite understanding all the words on their own, have no idea what they meant once combined.
Now that I understand!
Normal humans don’t understand 98% of what I say no matter what the topic is. I would say your right on the curve for normal folks. Which is odd consider your general … non-normal status.
Well I’m used to being on the normal curve. Unfortunately it’s rarely near the middle and usually closer to the ends (z > 3).
Notice my lack of specificity.
Understood.
(Darn!)