Twice in the last month I have created a new project. Both times, Scrivener mysteriously changed the name of my project from what I had picked to a project named Desktop, then backed up everything I have on my desktop into the .bak file, making one super-massive file. Also, the various parts of the Scrivener program, namely the folders labelled Files, Settings, Snapshots, ended up dumped on my desktop as different folders. This is crazy stuff. All I had in the new projects was no more than a couple paragraphs of new typing, but the .bak file was many gig in size.
The new Scrivener for Windows program cannot come soon enough.
So you create a new project via the File->New Project or the templates window, or did you create it elsewhere and then copy the .scrivx from there to your Desktop?
I ask because this looks suspiciously like when people just copy the file from Scrivener that keeps track of the rest of the project, and Scrivener then reacts by trying to re-create the containing .scriv folder and all its other components from nothing.
I opened up an old project, and selected Create New Project from the dropdown menu. Then I gave the new project a name in the popup, and told it to save my project to my Document folder. Initially, Scrivener did what it was told. I also created a shortcut to the .scrivx file, and put the shortcut on my desktop. When I opened the project from the shortcut, it did its wacky thing. It made a the massive .bak file with my entire destop contents inside it, and the it renamed my project to Desktop, and put this Desktop.scrivx file actually on my desktop (it was originally in Documents). It also deleted my shortcut, and the Snapshots, Files, and Settings folders were now scattered around my desktop.
I have made shortcuts to many old .scrivx files and opened these projects that way, and Scrivener never gave me this sort of result.
Are you positively absolutely 100% sure you put the shortcut on the desktop and not the actual scrivx file?
Asking because, as rdale pointed out, what you’ve described is exactly what would happen if you moved a scrivx file to your desktop (or any other folder) and then opened it.
I wonder if the shortcut itself could fool Scrivener into thinking it’s the actual .scrivx file? Is the shortcut named exactly the same, or does it have a name like “myproject.scrivx - shortcut”?
I am 100% positive I did not accidentally drag the .scrivx file to my desktop. All I did was put a shortcut there.
I did not check the extension of the shortcut because it vanished when Scrivener did its weird thing. It’s done this twice to me on two different computers. I’ve been using Scrivener for several years now on various projects, and only in the last month have I encountered this bug.
Even if I had accidentally dragged the project to the desktop, it should in theory still leave the Snapshot, Settings, etc., folders still my Documents. Also, when the project backed up, it should only have backed up what I typed into the Scrivener project or what I imported. Scrivener should not have grabbed everything on my desktop and backed that up, too. I have placed Scrivener projects directly on my desktop before, and run them on my desktop, and they have never done this.
Yup, this is a weird one. Sounds like Scrivener is mistaking your shortcut for a .scrivx file, or Windows is doing something to fool Scrivener into doing so. Scrivener then assumes the folder containing the scrivx file is a Scrivener project folder, and chaos ensues, as Scrivener does all the things it thinks it should be doing to make your project folder valid and ready for work.
I’ve been using the Scriv Beta exclusively now for a couple of months, but when I was using Win Scriv 1.9, on Windows 7, I had been using shortcuts as well, and never experienced an issue like this. What I do differently than you is my shortcuts were always in Favorites, and I created them by modifying the properties of an existing shortcut to point to the .scrivx file–not by drag & drop. But that shouldn’t make the slightest difference. What you’re doing should work.
Actually, once you take into account that Scrivener thinks your Desktop folder is a project folder, these actions make sense. Scrivener adds Snapshots, Settings, etc. to Desktop to make it a valid project folder. And when Scrivener backs up your shiny new Desktop project folder, it backups up everything in the project folder, just like it would do with any project folder. Backup is just a copy of your project folder, with an optional zip.
Sorry, but I have nothing useful to suggest as a workaround for this.
Although now that I think of it, one final question. How did you create the shortcut. Was it by using Copy and then Paste Shortcut? Is it possible you Pasted it instead of Paste Shortcut? That would be another way this (theoretically) could have happened, without assuming a bug.
