synced folder names carry project name

so once more, I would like to forward this wish:

naming of the folder sync folders not just “draft” “notes”, but with a name that indicates the project name,
would be AMAZING!!! (AMAZING!!!)

Don’t they already? As in “Name of Project/Draft/stuff.txt” ? Or are there tools out there that assume every folder is an island and not granted information from its ancestry?

yeah, that is the default answer here.

my answer is: yes, think actual sync for example, where folder name matters, or smart folder, or…

I will post this wish again in due time, thank you.

I’m not sure what you mean by actual sync. I use Dropbox, so the whole thing is there along with everything up to the Dropbox folder itself. I would presume with other services, you would be syncing the project folder, not just the draft folder separately from the notes folder?

On Smart Folders though, well same answer as Finder in general: liberate that info! Turn on your path bar. I couldn’t imagine working without it—but I didn’t think you could even turn it off in Spotlight generated windows. And if you know what project you want, why not search for the project name rather than “Draft”?

with sync I mean especially iPhone/iPad, and laptop. Unique folder name would help so much (when having several synced projects).

I know already that unique folder names violate your phiolosophy, but please consider that other people might have other workflows and other preferences, I do not consider that a major issue in terms of implementation, but it would help such a lot. Thank you for really trying to understand a user of your software.

What Ioa is saying is that you already have unique folder names - or you should do if you set up the sync properly. When you choose your sync folder, make sure you create a folder with your project name to sync into. Then the “Draft” and “Notes” folders go into that - the folder with the unique name, which you have created to have any name you want (most likely the name of the project).

Yes. And what I say is this: give me unique folder names, thank you for understanding a user of your software.

Unique in that they proudly carry their own beautiful individual name “project X draft” and not some inherited tags “son of a bitch/project x/ draft”. It not only is more practical, it would make them spiritually healthy, ballast free, satisfied individual folders. It is not an ego thing for them if you are afraid of that.

I know already that unique folder names violate your phiolosophy, but please consider that other people might have other workflows and other preferences, I do not consider that a major issue in terms of implementation, but it would help such a lot.

so once more, I would like to forward this wish:

naming of the folder sync folders not just “draft” “notes”, but with a name that indicates the project name,
would be AMAZING!!! (AMAZING!!!)

I will post this wish again in due time, thank you.

Please do not post this again - I have heard your wish and posting it repeatedly won’t help, but would be considered spam. :slight_smile:

I will consider this wish for the future, although to me this would just add clutter to the folder names within a project folder so I don’t think it is really desirable.

Thanks,
Keith

oh do not be so harsh, that breakes my heart. I am a customer trying to use your software. What would be a developer without us?

Maybe give in, implement that silly feature, it is no real pain, is it? implement it knowing it is nonsense, users are silly, really. but they pay you.

To make one more attempt to explain: the way computers work is, when you put something in a directory, the name of that directory is a part of the thing’s name that you put in it. So it is not correct to say that the name of the folder is just “Draft” and is not unique, because its real name is actually “Project Name/Draft” (and actually more than that, but you can cut it off wherever you like when talking and thinking about it). That is a unique name, assuming your projects have unique names. If your project is called “Red Pear”, then the full name of your draft sync folder is “/Users/yourname/DropBox/Red Pear/Draft”. That is very unique, already; it must be because the file system will not let you create two files with the same name (hence, the path is part of the name). This is the benefit of using a hierarchal path based filesystem. You can store things inside of other things to (a) keep your lists clean and concise and (b) create compound names with an ascending order of specificity without having to re-state general purpose information for each individual file or folder in the lower levels.

Now it is true, when you are using Finder without the Path Bar on, you cannot see the grandparent of an item you are looking at when using Icon mode. But there are easy ways to provide yourself that information even without the Path Bar. Open “Red Pear” as a list window and use collapsing to reveal sub-items:

Note how you can see what project this pertains to by the window title—that information is included in the title for a very important reason: because it is a part of these files beneath it. So even if you have four or five of these windows open, you can easily tell which goes with what because of the names of the windows.

Columns mode is another approach entirely. That lets you easily see three, four, or even five or more components of a filename (its path). Microsoft Windows Explorer has similar techniques and tools.

So you are asking for something that already exists, is a fundamental aspect of how your computer works. This all isn’t to say there is never a case where having “Red Pear Draft” may not be of use. Don’t get me wrong here; I’m not saying that you are wrong, but merely am trying to help you better use your computer by showing you how you can see more information with it, as it sounds like you’ve got things set up so that only a small amount of info can be used at once.

Sorry to off-topic here, but does the Mac project file have a different structure? On Windows we don’t seem to have ‘Drafts’ or ‘Notes’ folder, but ‘Docs’ and ‘ProjectNotes’.

Could this impact on compatability between the two platforms, or does Scrivener not care anyway?

This has nothing to do with the project file structure, don’t worry - this is about external folder sync, where Scrivener allows you to create a folder on your hard drive and it then pops “Draft” and “Notes” folders inside it containing text files. You can then edit those files on an external device (e.g. on an iPad, in text editors that support subfolders) and sync them back to the Scrivener project. This feature isn’t yet available on Windows (but will be coming eventually).
All the best,
Keith