The part that has me confused is you say you dropped the file via Air Drop - why did you do that? If the project is in the correct Dropbox folder, you don’t need to do that. All you need to do:
The project on your Mac is saved into /Dropbox/Apps/Scrivener (from your screenshot, that seems to be the case).
On your iPhone device, you make sure Dropbox is set up to sync with the /Apps/Scrivener folder (you can check that by tapping “Edit” in the sidebar, tapping the gear, and tapping “Dropbox Settings”).
Tap the sync icon on iOS to upload any changes you’ve made on the device. (There will be an orange triangle next to the project name if there are changes to upload.)
What I’m also confused about is that you have two copies of “Business Plan” on your device. You have one copy on Dropbox, and another “On my iPhone”. Those are two different copies of the project. If you Air Drop a project, that’s not syncing it - that is making a completely different copy on your phone. If you made changes in a project under “On My iPhone”, then that won’t appear on your Mac, because that project is not set up to sync with Dropbox - only projects listed under “Dropbox” sync with Dropbox.
I’m really sorry to be a pain, but I thought I was quite computer savvy, but this is just really messing with my head.
I’m going round in circles Keith.
I have a 64gb MacBook Air, its second hand Mid 2012 and I love it to bits, best thing I ever did was to move to Apple iOS from Android (on Phone) and to Apple Mac from Linux (On Desktop) so consequently I don’t have a lot of space in 64gb, and I don’t have the Dropbox App on my Mac, I think this is where it all falls down, I could be wrong and being really thick.
This may just really f your head up, because it is mine.
I did what you said yesterday and checked on iPhone wether it was connected to the correct Dropbox file, it was, but it wasn’t syncing so I copied “My Jewellery Class” and saved it onto Mac Desktop, I then deleted “My Jewellery Class” file on iPhone and unlinked Dropbox from iPhone, re connected dropbox to iPhone and pressed Sync button, it started to sync, hurrah, sussed it! I thought, NOT! it Only synced “My Business Plan”
As you probably know in Finder on Mac there is a Dropbox folder
Yes, you absolutely need the Dropbox app on your Mac - the Dropbox Mac app syncs anything in the Dropbox folder with the Dropbox servers. Without it, nothing will upload or download to or from your Mac.
You should not upload Scrivener projects as .zip files, as Scrivener won’t be able to open them.
What’s really confusing me is that your local Dropbox folder has two projects in it, whereas the one on Dropbox only has the Business Plan project in it (plus the two zip files you uploaded). Presumably that was uploaded from your iPhone. Also what’s confusing me is that the Dropbox folder listed in the menu you show on your Mac has the Dropbox icon in it, which normally means that you do have Dropbox installed. However, the files inside it do not have green ticks next to them, indicating that Dropbox is not syncing them. So something very bizarre seems to be going on on your computer that is unrelated to Scrivener.
I recommend moving the projects out of Dropbox for now, then downloading and installing Dropbox on your Mac and starting again.
Oh, I hope I didn’t sound like I didn’t want to help further - I’m just a bit confused as to what is going on! Please keep posting if you need further help - I’ll do my best, it’s just I’m baffled as to why your local Mac’s Dropbox folder isn’t syncing with Dropbox online.
Sorry I was short in last post, just frustrating it’s not working.
I’m mad at myself for not having discussed it when in beta.
It did sync once when I changed file name on Mac in Dropbox folder and then re-named in Dropbox folder on iOS
Could it be a memory issue, with my Mac, I have 1.6gb free at the moment?
In answer to your question about why is it duplicated on the Phone as well as Dropbox, thats so that I can work on my docs offline, both at Work and College I don’t have a great signal at either and both Work’s and College’s WiFi are shocking.
I’m still now sure why you are making a copy. The whole point of Dropbox is that it syncs files between machines, so that you have copies of the files on both devices as well as on their servers. When you sync with iOS, the Scrivener projects in Dropbox are there on your local device, available for use at any time. You do not need an internet connection. The only time you need an internet connection is when you the the “Sync” button, at which point Scrivener uploads any changes made locally and downloads any changes made on the server.
I recommend the first thing to do is just get Dropbox working on your computer. Get it in a state whereby anything you add to Dropbox on your computer ends up in Dropbox when you check the Dropbox site online. Only once that is working properly will you be able to get sync working in Scrivener, because Scrivener depends on Dropbox working properly on your computer.
Ensure that the Dropbox icon is in the menu bar on your Mac up near the clock. If it’s not, then the Dropbox background app isn’t open and it won’t be able to automatically sync anything on your Mac.
OK, I’ve been having the same problems. I think the instructions on how to synch aren’t particularly clear. How I got it to work is as the following:
In the File dropdown Menu I clicked “Save as”. This really confused me as I assumed it would be “Synch” right? Or export? And what is with that icon on the toolbar “synch with mobile devices”? Seems to do nothing.
in the location to save I opened Dropbox and selected the default Scrivener folder for IOS (e.g /Dropbox/Apps/Scrivener )
in IOS I made sure that Scrivener was set to synch with the correct folder, But please note, my work wouldn’t synch unless I clicked to another project in the binder (such as the tutorial) and back again.
I’ve been using Dropbox for over 4 or 5 years, so I’m used to its quirks. Takes a while to learn how it works, though. I was able to get files working by having the laptop and iPad open, sitting side by side and seeing what happened when I did something.
That said, I’m confused by the Mobile Devices sync in the Desktop Scrivener (Mac). What does that do?
I think there needs to be an alternative to Dropbox. If this software is dependent solely on that service, then what happens when that service goes down or something screws up on their end?
Users should have a way right from the get-go to sync via: Box, Google Drive, iCloud (this seems obvious), and OneDrive.
I am very, very frustrated over how synching is done, and am debating about returning your product until these matters are addressed. Synching is perhaps, if not, the most important aspect of your app, and if it remains as confusing as it is right now, I don’t think people will be inclined to using your app, no matter how many bells and whistles it has.
Sorry to be rough, but I had high hopes for Scrivener for iOS, and so far it’s fallen well below my expectations.
Yosimiti, you posted much the same ‘demand refund’ threat in another thread. Less than a day!
How about posting full details of your particular issue, screenshots etc so the L&L team and other forum users can see if there’s an actual problem, or merely an education thing.
The developers have posted very good reasons as to why Dropbox is the sync method at the moment. Google Drive and iCloud do not play well with Scrivener projects and are likely to corrupt files, leading to lost work. I wonder are you aware of the option to transfer files using iTunes? A foolproof method of transferring projects. There is a very good chance of user error/misapprehension on your end, so I suggest you go through the tutorial project, learn how the app works and then present any difficulties that you may have clearly, so that the developers and forum users can attempt to help you.
From my perspective, I’ve downloaded the app and created a test project on my iPad over the past hour or so. I then went through the synching section of the tutorial and, with Scriv open on both iPad and desktop, synched the project seamlessly. I will experiment later with some much larger projects that are currently on my desktop, but overall I am amazed at how smooth the sync process was, and indeed with just how intuitive the iPad version has been to use. I have never really given much thought of the iPad as a work tool, but Scrivener will likely change that. Congratulations Keith and all at Lit&Lat. My early impressions of the app are stellar.
Now this is a good question, which I am also curious about. I made changes on my laptop to my test iOS project. Without doing anything other than letting Scrivener auto save as per usual, I then opened Scrivener on the iPad and received the message that the project had had changes, and would I like to sync them. Why yes, yes I would and thank you! The project updates, and they are now identical. So I wonder whether this button is for use when returning to an internet connection after a period of work on the laptop, or something else?
Am truly sorry for by my curtness, and dissatisfaction. There are a great many things about Scrivener for iOS, but a problem I’m still having is syncing. I will go over the tutorial project over the next couple of days, and see if I’ve missed anything.
So far, the problem in Scrivener for iOS is that it creates these crash files, even when nothing has crashed. The whole dropbox syncing issue revolves around the inability of either app (desktop/iOS) to figure out which is the ‘master’ file. It really should be based on whatever the last device I’ve used. If the last device is iOS, then on dropbox, the file should replace the file that’s there with the file I recently edited or my iOS device. Ditto, for the desktop app and dropbox integration. It doesn’t seem to be doing that I’m afraid.
I have a Macbook Pro, and there’s an ingenious app you can get through the App Store (I believe) called “Clean My Mac 3”. It will definitely free up room on your hard drive, but also clear out your RAM in case you need a little more zippier opening and closing of files. I highly recommend it.
Woke up this morning and purchased the IOS version of Scrivener. Was also having sync issues until I realized I had everything local to my iphone. So when I get home from work today, all the changes will be there and ready to work with. Exciting!
I think the problems some people are experiencing are created by themselves by making things much too complicated. Just SAVE the project in the correct folder on Dropbox and you won’t have any problems.
The Sync buttln in iOS Scriv is to to save the changes you’ve made to your project before closing. The similar button in the Mac version is to check if there are any changes. If you just open the project in the normal way on the Mac (after having Saved/synced on the iOS device) you don’t have to do any special “syncing”.
You’re treating it as if it was still a question of “Sync with external folder” in rtf format, which it is not.
