Copying the files(/folders) over via Flash Drive has no impact.
If I run ScrivWin, and all I have is the ‘Create New Scrivener Project’ dialog open, and I select ‘Open Existing Project’, and then select one of the Mac 2.x files, Scrivener simply closes, and kills the process. No error message or anything to indicate something went wrong, aside from nothing loading at all.
However, it works for a project I created with ScrivWin.
Am I potentially doing the conversion/export wrong on the Mac side?
This is an area that hasn’t been extensively tested yet, so at this stage all data is good data. What I would try first is to keep it simple and see if you can replicate the problem with a blank project created on the Mac. Just leave it untitled and put a single word into the file. See if that opens for you in Windows.
If it does, then you can analyse the project that isn’t opening by dragging the entire binder from the old project to the empty one. Try again. Failure? Then try isolating individual files until it breaks again. Success? Could be something strange with the project format then—we’d have to approach the problem from another angle.
Scrivener Mac 1.54 -> 2.0 -> Windows: Works
Scrivener Mac 2.0 -> Windows: Works
Curious. So I tried what you suggested, copying.
I actually have two older Scriv files. One was a fairly byzantine thing with a bunch of embedded HTML files and pdf documents and such (an old decade-long writing project I compiled together). The other was a fairly new thing, but with an embedded pdf or two. Neither had worked when I converted using Mac 2.0, and brought over to Windows.
However, I created a new Scriv file in 2.0, copied everything from old project to new project, bring over to Windows…and it works. For both of them.
So: weird. At least there’s a pretty good workaround (just copy everything from the old and put in a new). Not the zestiest, but hey, livable. I vaguely suspect there aren’t many people who are going to be in this boat, but providing info on the workaround would be good for them.
Just a quick clarifying question: is there anything I might have missed on the copy-paste? I’ve noticed the Keywords and Labels didn’t carry over. Anything else?
(Sidenote: if you want me to send you the scriv files so you can see what might be going on, let me know a good way to get them to you. I’d rather not post them publicly given that various things I’ve written are in them, and while I trust your team to only analyze it for fixing bugs, I don’t necessarily trust everyone who anonymously visits these fora)
I downloaded the Windows beta onto my net book and the Nano version of Scrivener for Mac on my iMac and so far everything is working well with Dropbox. I’m very happy as I’m about to go off to a writing retreat, so I can take my netbook and use Scrivener!
Deb
I encountered the same problem. Windows XP wouldn’t open an upgraded Scrivener 2 project: no error message, just nothing happens.
But when I created on the Mac a new blank Scrivener 2 project and dragged everything from the original project’s binder to the new project’s binder, then brought over the new project to Windows, the Windows version of Scrivener did manage to open it.
The problem with this method: when I dragged my files/documents in Scrivener 2 from one project’s binder to another, I lost all my internal Scrivener links in the newly created project. They were converted into simple text.
Just to clarify, I meant this method to be used mainly as a method for isolating where the failure happened, not so much as a work-around. I wanted to make sure there was nothing in the files that was causing the glitch. Well it does work for a work-around, but a better work-around would be use the File/Import/Scrivener Project command into a new project as that will also copy your meta-data. It would still bomb your links though.
What this indicates, since we now have two individual cases, is that there is something in your project format itself that isn’t getting parsed correctly by the Windows version. It’s probably either a missing feature, or a bug in an esoteric one.
A second-stage test would be to use the import method and see if that works. If it fails, then it might be something in the meta-data which wasn’t copying over with simple Binder drags. Could be as simple as exotic Unicode characters in your keywords.
At that point, either way, I would suggest sending the .scriv file to windows AT literatureandlatte DOT com, along with this conversation so Lee knows what is going on with them and what isn’t suspect (files/meta-data).
But no, we don’t want to have cases where projects don’t load, and the user has to go through contortions that should only be done in the case of corrupted projects and recovery—just to use dual-platforms.
I created another blank project and this time used the File/Import/Scrivener Project command.
It worked as well – the resulting project could be opened in Windows.
In another thread, someone found that Windows and Mac start from different index values when writing out keywords (Windows starts at 1, Mac at 0, I believe), and this may be related.
When I get home tonight, I’ll get some files sent the way of that e-mail address.
I have sent (links to) files to that e-mail address, so that should help some.
I forgot to mention that I hope y’all don’t keep these files or use any of the scrivenings in them or anything against us in the future. Since a bunch of people have sent you files, I assume you’re just using them to track down problems, then deleting the problem files once the bug is fixed. Just wanted to make sure it’s on the table.
That’s certainly what I do. I get sent projects from time to time to fix them, or analyse what is wrong with them, and I always wipe them out once I’ve delivered the goods back to the customer. I’m sure everyone else is doing the same.
If you are worried about it though, you can use the project search and replace to scatter a few common letters around and render the thing completely unreadable.
I’m not particularly worried. I’m a software developer for my main job, and I’ve definitely had to analyze customer data and that sort of thing. At most, when discussing with co-workers, we might be like “So Harry put in an order for blah blah blah”, but what we’re really interested in is the problem. I figure it’s the same for y’all.
So, inspired by your comment, I deleted my keywords in the original project (after backing up plus saving-as, LOL), backed up the keyword-less project to zip, and managed to open the project on Windows. Weird.
Windows handled the project slowly, taking its sweet time switching to corkboard mode.
In index cards and in the project notes section (but not in documents) some of the following characters were converted to gibberish: ó " …
Then WinScriv encountered a problem when I clicked on a large folder of notes trying to display its content as index cards.
Maybe it is some type of “exotic Unicode characters” problem… Considering that my input languages on both the Mac and Windows are English and Hebrew. BUT my Scriv project contains no Hebrew characters, it’s in English plus a bit of Spanish (so it contains some characters with accents/diacritical marks).
I’m trying to gather up my courage and email the project to Lee so he could figure out if it’s a meta-data/weird Unicode thing. Only if he promises not to read the steamy parts.
I think it’s pretty clear there’s a keyword issue (although one of the devs should confirm). I think the character corruption is a different one, though. I know Lee’s working on that sort of thing in general.
If you’re really worried, you could just excise the steamy parts before sending
it took awhile, but I found my link. Yay! I imported my file from scrivener 2.0 for Mac, saving my old file as a 2.0 one. Then I turned on my window XP tablet, and and attempted to open the file in scrivener 2.0 for Windows. Problem: each time, the program would just crash. I read through the site, thought it was dropbox, made the file local, try to open it up again, it which just crash. I still can’t open it. Should I send the file
Hi, Deb, what did you mean by the Nano version? Is there a version offered in conjunction with NaNoWriMo? Or did you mean the free trial? Didn’t want to miss something.
edited to add
Oh, forgive me, I found it (about the discount off the full version when you win NaNo). I suddenly have more motivation to make the word count!
I too have old Mac scriv 1.x files that I opened in the Nano Preview to convert to 2.0 and then passed over to ScrivWin. So far, I haven’t detected problems of the nature you describe, but perhaps it’s early days (yes, they make folders but selecting the “project” file brings up the project fine in ScrivWIn. I do notice a total lack of respect for the fonts used, though, and the text is enormous compared with the Mac version (I find I have to scale it back to have the same visualisation of the files). One particular text fragment also came over with weird numbers in place of the indentations, as below :
“-280
-280Com?
-280El nostre grup pluridisciplinari, amb experiència en molts àmbits, ens permet afrontar els problemes més variats i trobar-hi solucions imaginatives però raonades . Experts en electrònica, comunicacions i programació, renovem constantment les tècniques, coneixements i eines per estar a la última de la tecnologia.
-280En la creació ----”
All other text fragments in the same file were fine, as were the various file formats in Research, except a pdf of a Powerpoint presentation, which came out as video inverted colours (commented problem on forum).
I shall also be trying to update scriv files all the way from Scrivener Gold through to Windows to see if that throws up anything strange, just for the heck of it!
Since a bunch of people have sent you files, I assume you’re just using them to track down problems, then deleting the problem files once the bug is fixed. Just wanted to make sure it’s on the table.
Considering that my input languages on both the Mac and Windows are English and Hebrew. BUT my Scriv project contains no Hebrew characters, it’s in English plus a bit of Spanish (so it contains some characters with accents/diacritical marks).
