Sharing all your projects, or just some

Scrivener
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1

Hi,

During the latest years I’ve used another program in parallel with Scrivener. This other program keeps all the projects in a library, that is supposed to be always shared between the different devices. At a later time they also allowed keeping projects in a local folders, without limiting their features.

My own library has grown enough to make me wonder if I should really keep everything always shared, or just the projects I’m working on, and those that I need for reference. Even without changes, synchronizing a huge library is much slower, and takes more space in the cloud.

This is also true with Scrivener. With it, I’ve always had to choose what to do, project by project. And now that I plan to return using it exclusively, I’ve to decide if moving everything to a shared cloud repository, or just put there some of the projects, leaving most of the projects in the main Mac.

I tend to prefer the solution where most of my projects sit in my main Mac, and only the projects I need when on the move are moved either to iCloud Drive (if I go around with another Mac) or Dropbox (if the mobile device is an iPad or iPhone).

Do you have any preference, suggestion, trick to share?

Paolo

2

Thinking aloud, again.

And I think that having the archive only in the main computer is the best solution.

  • You maintain a higher focus on the project(s) you are working on, without losing them in a mess of completed or abandoned projects.
  • Synchronizing in faster.
  • There is less chance of damaging archived projects.

This, in particular if the secondary device is an iPad or iPhone, that should remain as clean and light as possible.

Paolo

3

What specific goal do you hope to accomplish by sharing a project?

If you can’t answer, then don’t share it.

If the answer is some form of “backup copy,” then don’t share it. Setup a reliable backup instead.

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  1. You are going on trip. Question is should you pack your whole wardrobe or just the things you might likely need or want to have on the trip?

  2. You are going to the cafe to write. You will be away from your main computer for … um, several hours. Question is should you bring all your files with you or just the usual things you work in?

  3. In my own use there is a very clear distinction between those Scrivener projects that I live in and those I do not.

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Something to be considered is that sharing is much easier today than it was years ago.

When Scrivener added sharing, it was a pioneering feature. Not many other programs had it.

Now, it’s integrated in the operating systems. This also means that I can take a note or write some urgent scenes, while on a train ride or at the coffee, on any program in my iPhone or iPad. Apple Notes is always there. Or anything else I may like.

Adding that scene to the Scrivener project may happen later, at my studio, by copying the new note to an existing project in Scrivener. Sharing a project can really be only reserved to a prolonged work away from the main computer.

Paolo

6

Not to be too pedantic about it, but your chronology is a little off there. In fact, when we released Scrivener for iOS, we did so with full awareness that the way it worked would be considered “clunky” and “old fashioned” to many who had, already by that time, become consumed by the addictive convenience-over-safety equation of cloud syncing.

It was a calculated decision, as the alternative would have been even worse, to radically change (and make far less robust) how Scrivener saves data, merely to accommodate some sync users.

Now, it’s integrated in the operating systems.

That’s a bit off, too, at least in the sense that one might be saying “now”, since Scrivener for iOS was released. This has been something you can do since around 2008-ish—a bit earlier, but that’s about when it went mainstream.

Adding that scene to the Scrivener project may happen later, at my studio, by copying the new note to the ongoing work in Scrivener.

Yeah, this is a lot more like how I use it, if I understand correctly. If I have some ideas or want to type for a bit while I’m out, I create a one-off project on the phone and do so. When I get back home, I plug it in as a disk, open the project straight off of the phone (thanks ifuse), and drag and drop binder items around. Once I’m done I delete the project and unmount the device.

Now if I do want access to a project, that’s not big deal either, because my automatic backup folder on the Linux machine uploads automatically to my cloud account, meaning I technically have all of my projects at my fingertips. They just aren’t “in” the software (and thank goodness, I have hundreds of projects from over the years). So I go into Files.app, drag the latest .zip backup into the Scrivener folder, tap on it to unzip it, and there it is. No big deal. When I get back home I can replace the local copy, if I did anything worthwhile in it.

So that’s something to consider. You can have the potential of all your work available, without actually overloading the software with it all at once, and slowing down sync (if you have all of that in the sync area).

Those are my tricks to share:

  • Look up ifuse (I think it is MacFuze for Apple users?) so you can treat your phone like an external drive when you get home, rather than messing about with slow, complicated sync tech, or Apple’s amusingly awful Finder integration.

  • Set your automatic backup folder to your cloud service so you always have everything recent. Initially you might need to “seed” that folder with zipped copies of projects you haven’t worked on for a while. Personally I keep two of these folders, one is a graveyard of old backups (+3yr), that Scrivener isn’t hooked up to. The other is “live”. I do that simply so there is less to scroll through, as I keep 25 backups per project. I very rarely go into that older folder, meaning anything in there would just be scroll clutter on a tiny phone screen.

  • Zipping old projects in general, as a way of retiring them. I’ve posted that tip before, but once I’m done with a project I archive it and discard the copy that can be opened. That accomplishes two things: (a) it saves a lot of space of course, which is good for bandwidth and storage quotas online, and (b) if I want to look something up in this project, I have to extract it first to do so. I can then discard the extracted version when I’m done—meaning the archived copy never changes. It can change, if I want, by very deliberately zipping another copy with a new date on it—but by default the “project” as a concept is read-only, and that means stress-free access of the old project. I can poke around in there without any fear, without having to be careful, what I have open in Scrivener a throw-away copy.

    That same principle carries over to the phone. If I am pulling an old project from the cloud backup folder and looking at it on the phone, it’s a copy. I’m not making some big decision to move my one single canonical version into the Official Sync Folder and having to be very careful with it.[1] I can blow it up, discard it immediately. It doesn’t matter.

  1. Yes, technically with cloud sync there are as many versions as there are devices, plus the server in between them all, but as with RAID 1, where you use five hard drives to store the same data five times, that only protects you from mechanical malfunction of one device in the system. Human errors and machine corruption still instantaneously spread to all five copies. This is why we say cloud sync is not a backup, just like any IT person will tell you RAID 1 is not a backup. ↩︎

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Ah, but you are referring to the iOS synchronization. I was thinking to when we started sharing Scrivener projects between desktop and laptop Macs. iPads were still in mente Dei, and we were already sharing files! I find the first messages discussing Dropbox in 2008.

Nowadays we live with iCloud, OneDrive or Google Drive as the first thing welcoming us when turning our (fixed or mobile) devices in the morning.

I’m happy to share quick notes with myself via Apple Notes or via email. However, I’m still considering the way of having access to my projects, in case I have to check them when in vacation.

An alternative to what you are describing may be even just compiling them, and placing them in a cloud repository. Light, easy to browse through, easy to check from any device (provided it can read RTF, and there should be something for it on any computer).

Paolo

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I see the point of confusion. I was taking what you said too literally maybe, about Scrivener adding sharing, since the iOS version is the only version that ever had anything added to it. The Mac/Win versions don’t have anything, and work directly off of the system, which is integrated with the cloud service provider in some fashion. So yes, maybe a little too pedantic. :slight_smile: But it is good to know how projects are shared/synced on regular computers, and that you can do so with just about anything off the shelf these days (Google Drive is the only one we advise against).

I think, for retired projects, a compiled copy is a fine resource too. I compile everything to Markdown when it is done, and save it in my overall archive of .md files. At the top of this I put a link back to the location of the zipped Scrivener project on the system, so that I can easily restore and edit if need be without having to hunt around.

For these copies, I will often include notes and annotations, since that kind of stuff can be very useful for me to see without having to open the project.

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Under what circumstances would you need to do that, and for which projects? And how long are you going to be on vacation?

The “easy” answer is always going to be to sync everything, but as you note that has a downside as well.

As soon as you move from “everything” to a more intentional list, you need to be more intentional about when and why you might want to access something.

For me, my Mac has everything. My iPad has all of the projects I’m currently working on. (Plus a few that I simply haven’t bothered to move yet.) My iPhone has only a single “notebook” project.

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