Working on a story across multiple devices

Question

Hello,

I tried to edit a story that I began on one PC on another (using the software, not online) by opening it up on a shared network drive using the import option.  Coming back to it today I have found that none of the changes were saved.

If these are lost it will be a pain but not the end of the world, but I wanted to check

a) If there is somewhere I should look to find said project in case it was actually saving it somewhere else (can't see anything in the C:/Program Files/Twine folder)

b) If there is a way of doing this without using the online version (which I may ultimately move to now that I have two computers I am using for it)

It's kind of a pain that the software gives the impression that things are being changed and doesn't warn you that you can't save (or, it isn't saving should I say).

Cheers

Answer 1

Unless you made it save somewhere else, it should only be on the web browser it was made on. This is due the it being saved one the web browser itself. The file can be uploaded and sent as a file through email, google drive, or what ever you want to use. If it's gone then you might have accidentally deleted it. :(

 

I can't use the downloaded version so I'm not sure. (Chromebook)

Comments

I wasn't using it on the web browser (although thank you for reminding me why, I'd forgotten its essentially tied to the browser).

I downloaded the software and was working on there.  As far as I can tell its saving to a folder in my Documents folder.  I made a cop of these onto my One Drive folder and then on my other computer accessed it (though the software) on there.  

It opened fine and let me edit, but its only after I've come back to it today that I realised nothing was actually saved.

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Unfortunately, this is most likely a twine issue. It sounds like you did everything correctly.

 

You might wanna report it as a bug.

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Cheers.  I've barely used Twine (and only used it on one PC) so I wasn't sure if I had done something incorrectly.

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Actually, that doesn't sound like a bug.  It sounds like you might not have opened an updated file, but instead the same old file.  The updated version likely still there at the other computer.

If you're going to go from one place to another it might be a good idea to "publish" it to an HTML file, and then "import" that HTML at the other location.  That would be the safest way.

Answer 2

The folder that the desktop release of the Twine 2.x application uses to store it's project HTML files differs depending on a number of things like the Operating System being used and the Laungage that the OS or the application has been set to.

You can determine the location of this folder by selecting the Twine > Show Library menu items, which should open your OS's File Explorer with that folder selected.

You have a number of options available to you for sharing the contents of the above folder:

1. You could move that folder to a portable media device and then create a symlink replacement in the original location (with the same name as the moved folder) that references the new location of the folder.

eg. (for Win10) If the folder was originally located at C:\Users\XXXXX\Documents\Twine\Stories and you moved the Stories folder to somewhere like F:\Twine\Stories then you would create a symlink named Stories in the original parent C:\Users\XXXXX\Documents\Twine\ folder like so.

mklink "Stories" "F:\Twine\Stories"

2. You could install a Version Control System like Git or Mercurial and then create an repository on one of the online sites like GitHub or BitBucket, you could then use the VCS software on the (above) Stories folder to track the changes you make to your project HTML files.

warning: You may need to close down the Twine 2.x application before you commit and push your changes up to the online repository.

3. You could create an account on a File Hosting site (like Dropbox) and then install it's associated Desktop Application (like the Dropbox App) to help move the monitored files between your local machine and the file hoster.

warning: (on Windows) Because the default Stories folder is part of the User system and therefor a virtual folder, I would suggest first using the technique mentioned in point 1 to relocate the Stories folder to somewhere else on your local harddrive, and then use the File Hosting Desktop Application to monitor the new location instead.

Comments

Cheers for this really useful and detailed response (and FWIW Windows 10 UK English).

Following on from my post I noticed that it's not that it wasn't saving the updates to that shared file, it actually wasn't saving anything.  That story was the only one I had on my second laptop so I misdiagnosed the issue.

After digging around some more I found that there was no C:\Users\[name]\Documents folder and it seemed to be because OneDrive was set to sync that folder, which for some reason removed it.  Switching off the sync then meant Twine would save (and remember!) the stories.

I'm not sure if this is some weird Windows 10 bug or issue.  I'l update this if I find out any more, but for the moment it seems to work, although I would have to export each time I want to move it across machines, but I'll look into the symlink suggestion of yours.

Thanks again!