Dedicated Conflicts and Comparison Tool
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 3:28 pm
Since the launch of the iOS version, I've slowly started migrating my working projects to Dropbox.
Once this process began, I noticed that I have in some cases 7 or 8 different location copies of the same project. Some are Scrivener created copies because the Scrivener thinks I've got the project open in different places. Some are squirreled away local copies and backups, and some are... Frankly I have no idea why they are there and how they got made. Now that I'm editing in up to six different virtual locations (iPhone, iPad, MacMini OSX, MacMini WinX, MacBookPro OSX, MacBookPro Win7) I'm running into a problem of pulling up what I think is the most up to date version of a project, and have several parts of the project be older, and then overwrite the edits done else where in the next sync.
See what I mean, all of these projects are the same root project.
Years ago, before Al Gore invented the Internet and Usenet had a high signal-to-noise ratio I used a product called "Beyond Compare" and it was great for what it did. I wish I had a similar tool that could look inside of Scrivener projects like that.
Would it be possible to develop a dedicated tool (I'm thinking an external one) to open multiple project files for comparisons? For example, feed it four different versions of the project, have it chew on all of them, and then generate a new project as a result that has all the congruent text in black and the variations merged in their respective locations as different colored text?
As more and more cloud-based storage of projects occurs, I think this would be a useful means to de-conflict projects without risk of major data-loss. Especially since it would be using the power of your computer to scan through all that text, rather than trying to eyeball which parts of the dozen project files have that one annoying typo killed forever!
Once this process began, I noticed that I have in some cases 7 or 8 different location copies of the same project. Some are Scrivener created copies because the Scrivener thinks I've got the project open in different places. Some are squirreled away local copies and backups, and some are... Frankly I have no idea why they are there and how they got made. Now that I'm editing in up to six different virtual locations (iPhone, iPad, MacMini OSX, MacMini WinX, MacBookPro OSX, MacBookPro Win7) I'm running into a problem of pulling up what I think is the most up to date version of a project, and have several parts of the project be older, and then overwrite the edits done else where in the next sync.
See what I mean, all of these projects are the same root project.
Years ago, before Al Gore invented the Internet and Usenet had a high signal-to-noise ratio I used a product called "Beyond Compare" and it was great for what it did. I wish I had a similar tool that could look inside of Scrivener projects like that.
Would it be possible to develop a dedicated tool (I'm thinking an external one) to open multiple project files for comparisons? For example, feed it four different versions of the project, have it chew on all of them, and then generate a new project as a result that has all the congruent text in black and the variations merged in their respective locations as different colored text?
As more and more cloud-based storage of projects occurs, I think this would be a useful means to de-conflict projects without risk of major data-loss. Especially since it would be using the power of your computer to scan through all that text, rather than trying to eyeball which parts of the dozen project files have that one annoying typo killed forever!