Can the ‘Close Project and Sync’ routine be automated?

[RHvdG]

Nearly every day, often more than once, I’ll open the iOS app to continue working where I left off on my Mac. When sync starts, a dialog appears asking me if I want to ‘Close Project and Sync’, with options ‘now’ and ‘later’. Options are good, obviously, but I can’t imagine anyone choosing ‘later’ when there is an internet connection, and when there isn’t, there’s no syncing to begin with. So lacking relevant options, is it perhaps possible to automate this? When I give the sync order, the project could just close, sync could happen, and, final touch, the project that was open could open again.

[AmberV]

“Later” is a pretty important option to have, given that this dialogue box will first appear at the first sign of there being content worth syncing—however given how sync works, the first sign may not mean it is done syncing. Files and folders may still be downloading, and it is not easy to know when that process is truly complete, from Scrivener’s perspective. The dialogue box is thus an opportunity to glance at the Dropbox status indicator in the menu bar to ensure it is safe to proceed.

I think that if we took that important safeguard away, even as an option, it would increase the overall rate of incidental conflicts. Even the time it takes to react to the dialogue and trigger the button is probably enough to finish downloading for most small edits, but if the software handled it, the beginning of the download process would become an immediate trigger to start syncing, and might even rarely a safe point in time to sync.

[RHvdG]

(...) The dialogue box is thus an opportunity to glance at the Dropbox status indicator in the menu bar to ensure it is safe to proceed.

Are we both talking about Scrivener on iOS?

[AmberV]

No, I was referring to the sync alert dialogue on the Mac, but the same exact reason exists for the alert on iOS as well. When it runs an initial check it is only doing a surface sweep for evidence of changes, other devices might still be uploading, and you would not want to sync yet until it has completed. The Later button lets you get past this alert and work on local data or do other things until the network is ready.

The two options that can streamline where it is safe to do so are in Settings.app, under Scrivener: Syncing & Sharing. The options to check on project open and sync on close/rename are both good to enable if you can.