Am I right in thinking that only standard collections work for synching to Index Card for iPad? I’ve tried doing it with a Saved Search collection - which is convenient as you can designate the files for synching with keywords, etc - but this doesn’t show up when I try to do the synch. I guess this is because of the special nature of Saved Search collections.
This means presumably that the only way of building the collection for synching is manually via the add button or drag-and-drop. Which also means updating it manually or rebuilding entirely when there are changes. Bummer, though unavoidable, I guess.
Easiest way to do this would be to set up a saved search for syncing, and then either convert that search to a standard collection in the View/Collections sub-menu, or select all the items in the search result and hit the + button, then sync off that. I myself would prefer the latter, then the next time I sync I only have to remove the old standard collection. I would call it “Temp” or something.
The reason Scrivener needs a standard collection is: if you change the order of your stuff in IC, the order will be changed within the collection in Scrivener when syncing. It can’t change the order if it is a standard collection.
Mind you, if you have to work in IC and make changes there, wouldn’t you want these to be reflected back into Scrivener, as with the External Folder? That’s the way I’ve been planning to go. Otherwise you only have one-way synching. Or am I missing something?
Ah, but of course, any synching back would only affect the collection, getting it out of whack with the Binder. Maybe this explains why I’ve had trouble synching back from IC…
Ah, yes that might indeed explain it. This is really why we anticipate most people will only use IC periodically and with bursts of files from parts of the Binder, rather than bulk quantities—it makes getting structural revisions much easier to apply. If, for example, you place the contents of a chapter into collection, you can then move items around in IC and when you load the .plist file back into Scrivener that collection will have its order changed to reflect those adjustments (which is why you can’t use an ordered collection). You can select all of these in the collection and drag them back to the binder; pause over the tab to let it switch; and drop them back into the chapter folder to affect the changes to the binder.
We have a video tutorial on all of this, which describes how to go back and forth and update IC order in Scrivener. I definitely recommend checking it out as it is only a few minutes long.