iCloud Sync

[LuckyJack]

Keith, you have a most wonderful philosophy of customer support. My only regret is popping off and consuming so much of your time!

Dropbox works great, and I guess I need to man up and install it on my systems. I have shied away because I can't get away from iCloud and didn't want to install a second sync service. No reason not to, and I already use Dropbox's web interface for sharing some business data with a partner.

I had forgotten about that option to let Apple decide what to stop syncing. Evil. If I want something synced, I want it synced.

Thanks for your detailed explanation, and kudos to you and your team.

[cammot]

Stop the Dropbox crap. Start supporting iCloud sync.

Scrivener probably isn't for you. Live with it.

Dropbox valuation is still in flux, and I haven't kept up with the latest so my numbers may be somewhat out of date. But at the end of July it was still valued at $9.4B, significantly higher than its competitor Box. Based on their run rate, Dropbox is projected to pull in over $1B in revenues this year. Yes, their 9.4 multiplier is high - but this is a signal that the market sees a bright future for this product. This is borne out if you dig into their investors. All the heavyweights have placed big bets on Dropbox.

Your upset that iCloud sync is not available is understandable. Your hyperbole is unforgivable.

I was excited to learn there was a new upgrade, but was soon disappointed when I found out there was no improvement to the seamless iCloud intergration that so many have been begging for years. Responses like “Scrivener probably isn't for you. Live with it.” and/or “Your upset that iCloud sync is not available is understandable. ”; are the same standard one liners uttered before, and a poor response, IMHO - pity !.

[kewms]

I was excited to learn there was a new upgrade, but was soon disappointed when I found out there was no improvement to the seamless iCloud intergration that so many have been begging for years. Responses like “Scrivener probably isn't for you. Live with it.” and/or “Your upset that iCloud sync is not available is understandable. ”; are the same standard one liners uttered before, and a poor response, IMHO - pity !.

Note that the response came from a forum member, not a Literature & Latte staff member. You may find the response from 'KB' (the developer) much more informative.

Katherine

[JungleNYC]

1. It is perfectly safe to use iCloud Drive to share your projects between computers just as you use Dropbox.

Hey there! Jumping on…

I am a non-power user. I.E,., I really only have a couple of simple projects under development, and ONLY work on one computer. However I do have my projects stored in my iCloud folder hierarchy because, well, that's where I store most things. I have never had a problem, but lately have been served up the dreaded "CHOOSE WHICH VERSION" window. The past 2 months I've gotten a few of these with TWO competing versions, but I've recently been confronted with THREE competing versions.

Is this an Apple problem? My iCloud has been a tad funky lately w/ Photos, music, etc. Which is kinda scary.

I take a lot of care to SAVE and CLOSE each time, too. So…should I just get my projects out of iCloud and off my desktop?

I'm thinking "probably"

[xiamenese]

In my experience, iCloud can be very slow in updating, and unless you're looking at a finder window, there's no indication of how far it has got with the process. So, while it should be usable, it will take even more care than Dropbox or Sync—both of which have a menu bar icon indicating that they're still in the process of sync'ing—to make sure the process has completed.

Perhaps you're closing properly (you shouldn't need to save as Scrivener should be doing that automatically on project close, but check the preferences on that), but not always allowing iCloud enough time to upload fully before you put your computer to sleep or close it down. If that's the case, you'll have different versions on your disk and in your iCloud account.

Mark

[LuckyJack]

For another half-turn of the dragon's tail, it looks to me like Scrivener V3 projects inside DevonThink databases work fine. I even made a DevonThink template out of an empty Scrivener project, so I don't even have to leave DevonThink to start a new Scrivener file/project/Polynesian moai.

Of course, the question of why in Bartleby's name one would want to do that is left as an exercise for the enterprising scrivener. For my part, I feel life is often too safe and assured. In this case, I don't think it's that risky since everything in a DevonThink database is stored in good old MacOS folders. They are inside a package, for a hint of mystery, but otherwise, everything is stored in regular OS subdirectories.

I would go into further detail, but stalwart Rocinante stamps his impatience and giants are at the gates!

Trust your muse, but keep current backups. Not necessarily in that order.

[chengs]

Still, the ability of syncing using iCloud is very very important.
As a Chinese user, when I am in China, there is no way to access Dropbox smoothly but there is no problem for connecting iCloud.

[xiamenese]

Still, the ability of syncing using iCloud is very very important.
As a Chinese user, when I am in China, there is no way to access Dropbox smoothly but there is no problem for connecting iCloud.

If you are only wanting to sync projects between Macs, between Windows PCs, or between platforms, have a look at Sync, https://www.sync.com. It is accessible in China, works just like Dropbox, though I have a suspicion it is very slightly slower than Dropbox, but it's much quicker and better with Scrivener than iCloud. Just like Dropbox, you need to check that sync'ing is complete before shutting down/putting to sleep your computer. I use it with my collaborators in China.

If you're talking about Mac <—> iOS, then for the moment you'll need Dropbox and a VPN.



Mark

[m0n0]

Thanks to this thread understand why Scrivener only 'syncs' properly with Dropbox. I just wanted to say that I hope this issue gets resolved some time. I share the OP's concern about DropBox over the longer term. IAWriter stopped working with it recently. It's pretty invasive with the access it requires to your system and what it wants to modify. Scrivener is the ONLY reason I have Dropbox running on all my machines. It's another cloud service, on top of Google Drive, iCloud and OneDrive that I have running, but the one I have no use for apart from Scrivener.

[jeffcdo]

It's another cloud service, on top of Google Drive, iCloud and OneDrive that I have running, but the one I have no use for apart from Scrivener.

I'm in the same situation, I only recently decided to return to Scrivener for a major project and was hugely disappointed to discover I had to re-subscribe to Dropbox (LONG ago abandoned) just to use the iOS version of Scrivener. I have my fingers crossed that an iCloud solution might appear in 2018.

[kewms]

I'm in the same situation, I only recently decided to return to Scrivener for a major project and was hugely disappointed to discover I had to re-subscribe to Dropbox (LONG ago abandoned) just to use the iOS version of Scrivener. I have my fingers crossed that an iCloud solution might appear in 2018.

This is not accurate. You don't need Dropbox to *use* iOS Scrivener, just to synchronize with other platforms. We have customers who use iOS Scrivener as a standalone application, and others who use iTunes file sharing to transfer data back and forth.

Katherine

[YouAlreadyForgot]

Another vote for an alternative to Dropbox syncing, preferably iCloud. As venerable tech publication Macworld says in their May 29, 2018 roundup of cloud storage services:

What about Dropbox? Well, it’s hard to recommend for most users. [...] Dropbox was the go-to cloud storage and sync service eight years ago, but has since been surpassed by more robust, flexible, and affordable offerings from its competitors.

There you have it: Dropbox is no longer regarded by mainstream tech publications as a best-of-breed solution in 2018.

Scrivener is literally the only app I use that still has a dependency on Dropbox for sync. Every time I'm stuck waiting on a Dropbox sync while opening or closing a Scrivener project, I start thinking about migrating to other writing tools. And as someone who's bouncing back and forth between an iMac and an iPad all day, that adds up to a lot of staring at the Dropbox syncing progress meter.

[David Munch]

There you have it: Dropbox is no longer regarded by mainstream tech publications as a best-of-breed solution in 2018.

That doesn't really matter from a developmental point of view, if the majority of users are using that over other synchronization services. Dropbox has half a billion registered users. If even 25% of those accounts are active, it is an enormous number of users.

[kewms]

Scrivener is literally the only app I use that still has a dependency on Dropbox for sync. Every time I'm stuck waiting on a Dropbox sync while opening or closing a Scrivener project, I start thinking about migrating to other writing tools. And as someone who's bouncing back and forth between an iMac and an iPad all day, that adds up to a lot of staring at the Dropbox syncing progress meter.

It is unlikely that a different cloud solution would resolve this specific issue. Synchronization works the way it does in order to minimize the risk of synchronization conflicts and data loss when working between devices. Any other solution would require the exact same approach from our end, and in fact the difficulty of implementing that approach with other services is *why* Dropbox was chosen in the first place.

Katherine

[auxbuss]

In the past, I know Keith has mentioned his desire to get iCloud sync working. I trust Keith enough to know there are technical difficulties blocking this. However, it is odd that for all other data we can sync via iCloud, even if not in real time.

I've only been using macOS for five years, but I've never used iTunes for file copying – I've no idea how to do that nor why I'd want to. Instead, I simply drag files into iCloud Drive and they are available on iPad and iPhone. I'm sure there's a reason that this method of sync isn't provided for Scriv, but I am a bit surprised that it's not available – and if it is, why it's not being promoted. In addition, like everyone else, I have quite a number of apps now that sync seamlessly via iCloud; to the point that it's SOP.

I just want to be clear that this isn't a complaint – I think Scriv, especially since v3 is the dogs (as we say in the UK) – just that it's a bit odd that Dropbox is still promoted as the One True Way when iCloud – for everything else – does what Dropbox does but, ime, a lot better in Appleworld.

YMMV, etc.