I know the v2 of Scrivener for the Mac supports built in synchronising with Drop Box but, using the current beta on Linux or Windows, what specifically is missing?
I.e. I have Drop Box and Scrivener installed and have a test Srivener folder saved in the drop box file area. I can read and write to this directly from within Scrivener which updates regularly to the online drop box account. When away, I can access and read the .rtf files on my Android phone and also open and edit them on my iPad.
In addition, I can download the docs folder on another PC (without Drop Box installed), edit the .rtf files as I want, re-upload them via the web app and when I get home, they are there within my Scrivener project on my netbook.
What am I missing here that the official Drop Box sync’ support in the Mac V2 Scrivener gives?
What you should never do is edit the RTF files within the scrivx folder with another editor. It can screw up the whole project big time. The sync system for the Mac exports the contents as text files that can be edited and then when the re-sync to Scrivener is done, the changed paragraphs are merged by Scrivener. If you edit the RTF directly you’ll end up with internal scrivener files like binder-strings and others no longer matching the text it finds in the RTFs, and you’ll get a loud raspberry!
Thanks for the reply and link. Can appreciate the pptential issues if the drop box local copies haven’t updated fully before the project is opened - always made sure that things have been up tp date though and taken backups just in case.
I haven’t noticed any issues though when editing the rtf files directly, i assume additional metadata is stored in them which wouldn’t be updated if edited outside of Scrivener…?
The trouble is that you’re modifying parts of the Scrivener package without letting other parts know, which can cause some messes; the external editor you’re using can also wipe out formatting and whatnot. For example, Scrivener uses some of its own code in the RTF for things like annotations, which may get lost or altered when working in another editor. Links–regular and Scrivener links–are not just embedded in the RTF but are associated with other files, so editing your document externally will update the RTF but not the other files, meaning that your links can get removed or move to the wrong text within the document. A handful of other internal files that Scrivener uses to index and maintain the project also won’t know about the changes you’ve made and so things can get out of sync. If you start deleting or adding documents to the Docs folder, things will really get messy.
Overall, it’s really a better idea not to edit the files directly.
