Been looking through the forums and the manual for an answer to this one, but I’m a bit confused. The 2.0 backups have become quite slow for my bigger projects, so I’m happy to turn backing up off, but I’m curious what is actually happening behind the scenes. I keep all of my Scrivener projects on Dropbox, which provides it’s own versioning/“backup” solution. I’ve broken projects on Scriv 1.5 (because of Dropbox, mind you) and was able to easily restore from the latest version on Dropbox.
In short, 1) what does Scrivener 2.0’s backup process do and 2) is it any more or less robust/advantageous than Dropbox’s versioning? Thanks in advance.
Sorry, forgive me, I couldn’t resist. You want more specifics, don’t you?
You can set up how Scrivener backs up in the “Backup” pane of the preferences. Then all that it does is make a copy, or a zipped-up copy, of your entire project when you close, open or save your project (depending on your preferences - the default setting is just to backup on close).
You can turn backups off on a project-by-project basis via the File menu - I personally turn off backups for large projects simply because it takes a while. But you can then use File > Back Up > Back Up Now (which backs up to the folder set via the preferences) or File > Back Up > Back Up To… to back up manually.
I recommend using the backup feature at least once a day, really. Dropbox treats .scriv files as folders, so it may be more difficult to retrieve a project that way.
One more, though I think I know the answer: Is there any way to make clicking the red aqua-ball “X” hide the Scrivener project instead of closing it completely? Or rather, can you backup on quit instead of on close?
Annoying, aren’t I?
PS I should really go back to Microsoft Word because whenever I have a problem their developers are always sure to reply within hours and include smileys, quips and substantive answers to my queries. Plus their software is so cheap!
No, there’s no way to make the red close button hide the window instead - that what cmd-H is for. And backing up on quit wouldn’t really make any difference - there would still be the wait for things to back up. It would be exactly the same as leaving the projects open and then quitting, as on quitting projects get closed and thus back up.
