Scrivener & Wine - file locations when creating new projects?

[twigletzone]

Hi all,

I'm running Scrivener 19.0.0 under WINE with Ubuntu 14.04, and I'm missing something about where in the filesystem I can create new projects. Some locations seem to magically work (anything that's ready-made in the dropdown box in the New Project dialog), but with anything else I get "File does not exist". I want to create a project in ~/Dropbox so I can get it cloud stored, but the dropdown box only has Home, and trying to use the tree in the top pane to get to the right place just gets me errors again. Can anyone tell me what it is that I haven't undersood, and whether I can fix it?

[Graybyrd]

WINE assumes you have a "C" directory (following Windows convention) and a 'home' directory on that virtual C drive. Some confusion comes from WINE trying to accomodate both the expected Windows file layout, and co-existing with your Linux home folder and its file layout.

I also use Dropbox; it was installed in my Linux file directory; Scrivener (under WINE) looks for the home directory on your "C:" MyDocuments directory, because that's the typical Windows convention.

WINE and Scrivener accommodates your Linux folder structure, but as a separate directory system from your Windows "C" and "My Documents" path; for instance, mine refers to "Z:" directory for my Linux home file system. I'd suggest doing a bit of exploring with your file manager, or by following folders in the 'save project' window dialogue, to see the layout of your file paths.

Hope this helps. Trust me, it works, once you understand the schizophrenic duality of accommodating both the Windows and Linux file pathways, side by side, using WINE.

[twigletzone]

I think I've got that part figured out:

~twigletzone/.wine/drive_c/users/twigletzone = Scrivener's 'Home' dropdown item
~twigletzone/.wine/drive_c/users/twigletzone/Desktop = Scrivener's 'Desktop' dropdown item
~twigletzone/.wine/drive_c/users/twigletzone/My Documents = link to ~twigletzone in the Linux filesystem, appears as 'Documents' in Scrivener's dropdown.

My WINE also sees the Linux root filesystem as drive Z. Trouble is it won't open a Scrivener project anywhere on drive Z. I have an NTFS partition mounted in /media/windows/ which is where I want to save all my Scrivener projects; I can browse to the location via drive Z in the Create New Project dialog, but if I try to create anything (anywhere on drive Z, not just in the one folder) I see this:

error.png (38.73 KiB) Viewed 1905 times

Any ideas what this is about?

[Graybyrd]

Any ideas what this is about?

Umm... not specifically. I'd do a little testing, something simple such as using a text editor like Geany or Mousepad or whatever you have handy. Try writing a file to that location. Or first, use your file manager and navigate to that location, and try creating a folder there. Then write a file into it with your text editor.

First off, to eliminate file confusion, my WINE directory points to the same 'documents' folder as in my Linux 'home' location, ie:

"/home/graybyrd/documents" ==>is the same as ==> "/home/graybyrd/.wine/drive_c/users/graybyrd/My Documents"
Both folders go to the same location, which is to say, both have the same content. Check it out.

Now, from either a Linux app, or a WINE app, you should be able to go to (LInux) "documents" or (WINE) "My Documents" and create a folder, Scriv project, text editor file, etc. and access them again. It's worth testing out with your Scrivener install.

My personal opinion is that you've unnecessarily *complicated* things by insisting on a unique and separate Windows partition that is set up as a totally different drive from the rest of your system (hence, "media/windows/" ) and I'm convinced that this somehow the root of your file/folder problems.

So, try a quick test Scriv project; save it to the "My Documents" folder on your WINE "Drive C" and see if that works (it should).

As for the /media/windows/ directory, I'd check permissions (use terminal "ls -l" command; you should see read & write "x's" in the start of the file listings in "owner" position. But I'd get straight with the "home" and "Drive C" locations first.