A. Smith Posted August 11, 2023 Share Posted August 11, 2023 I’m sure I need some education, but I’m honestly not sure why iCloud syncing should be difficult. I’ve got many apps that work across macOS and iOS and simply share the same folder and files in my iCloud Drive. Is the issue that the desktop and iOS versions don’t use the same file types? Even Dropbox syncing is weird to me. The files are in the folder. Everything else in Dropbox just syncs as the files are changed. Why is accordance so different? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Knapp Posted August 11, 2023 Share Posted August 11, 2023 Dropbox was adopted originally because we needed a solution that also worked on Windows and there was hesitation to try to go the iCloud route on that platform. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Nathan Parker Posted August 11, 2023 Share Posted August 11, 2023 Enhanced syncing is arriving in 14.1 for Desktop (and for mobile around the time we release 14.1 for Desktop). Then you can send Dropbox syncing to that giant data center in the sky. :-) Dropbox was originally chosen for two reasons: 1. We needed something that would work on Windows (iCloud and Windows do not mix well at all). 2. Apple forces some iCloud syncing APIs to be restricted to Mac App Store versions only. We didn't want to restrict the release of our Mac app to a Mac App Store version, so that ruled out some iCloud syncing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlm Posted August 12, 2023 Share Posted August 12, 2023 20 hours ago, A. Smith said: I’m sure I need some education, but I’m honestly not sure why iCloud syncing should be difficult. I’ve got many apps that work across macOS and iOS and simply share the same folder and files in my iCloud Drive. Is the issue that the desktop and iOS versions don’t use the same file types? Even Dropbox syncing is weird to me. The files are in the folder. Everything else in Dropbox just syncs as the files are changed. Why is accordance so different? I think one reason it's not that simple is because Accordance doesn't just sync at the file level: it tries to sync or at least recognize non-overlapping changes inside the file. Suppose you're somewhere without Internet, and on iOS you add a note to a verse in John, while on macOS you add a note to a verse in Genesis. Then you go back to having Internet access and sync the two devices. Both devices changed the notes file, so if syncing only happened at the file level, Dropbox or iCloud would notice the conflict and keep one copy of the notes file, while the other copy would be renamed to indicate it's conflicted, and wouldn't be accessible in the iOS or macOS GUI (because no notes file by that name is in the library). The result as far as the user is concerned would be that one of the two notes he made disappeared (the other one is in the other file he can't see in the program). So Accordance tries to detect these cases so that the changes to the two copies of the notes file can be merged into one file that has both new notes, or at least the user can be asked how to resolve the conflict. The situation is similar with highlighting: one highlights file could have highlights added on different devices in different places, and the user wants sync to keep both changes. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Nathan Parker Posted August 12, 2023 Share Posted August 12, 2023 Good point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A. Smith Posted August 12, 2023 Author Share Posted August 12, 2023 11 hours ago, jlm said: I think one reason it's not that simple is because Accordance doesn't just sync at the file level: it tries to sync or at least recognize non-overlapping changes inside the file. Suppose you're somewhere without Internet, and on iOS you add a note to a verse in John, while on macOS you add a note to a verse in Genesis. Then you go back to having Internet access and sync the two devices. Both devices changed the notes file, so if syncing only happened at the file level, Dropbox or iCloud would notice the conflict and keep one copy of the notes file, while the other copy would be renamed to indicate it's conflicted, and wouldn't be accessible in the iOS or macOS GUI (because no notes file by that name is in the library). The result as far as the user is concerned would be that one of the two notes he made disappeared (the other one is in the other file he can't see in the program). So Accordance tries to detect these cases so that the changes to the two copies of the notes file can be merged into one file that has both new notes, or at least the user can be asked how to resolve the conflict. The situation is similar with highlighting: one highlights file could have highlights added on different devices in different places, and the user wants sync to keep both changes. This is a great point and accounts for the 'weirdness' I've been puzzling over. Thank you! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmwebb6 Posted August 12, 2023 Share Posted August 12, 2023 Any idea when Accordance 14.1 will arrive? I haven't been able to get dropbox to work in sometime and the syncing is very frustrating. Enhanced syncing was the feature that I was looking most forward to in Accordance 14 when I purchased it last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Hall Posted August 12, 2023 Share Posted August 12, 2023 They just updated to 14.0.7, so it will probably be a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Nathan Parker Posted August 12, 2023 Share Posted August 12, 2023 We're going to do one more bug fix update, 14.0.8. After that, we're ready to double down on getting 14.1 done. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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