Hi All, my first time here! Love the podcast & I get to geek out a little.
I have a question/request. I really want to use Drafts but iCloud Drive is not allowed on my work computer. I know there’s an action to add a note to Dropbox but is there another workaround to make it work automatically i.e. notes across all my devices sync automatically?
I’ve tried a workaround w/ Ulysses - I use the Drafts Inbox folder on my iPhone as the location for Ulysses notes which Drafts imports automatically. But any changes I make in drafts do not sync back to Ulysses. Plus this isn’t much of a workaround because I can’t access the Drafts iCloud folder on my work computer which is my main computer.
Drafts uses iCloud for sync, which is not quite the same as iCloud Drive which is for file storage. No other options are available that would allow for automatic two-way sync. In system management terms, Apple groups them both under the broader ‘iCloud’ options.
Drafts’ drafts are not files. They are database records. They hold not only the content of the current version, but also past versions too, and meta data about each.
As you note, there are automations for imports of file content into to Drafts, but there is no true sync outside of the app’s database being available on all devices, and that is managed through [Cloud Kit].
Without the sync functionality that Apple provides in Cloud Kit, there is currently no automated sync for Drafts.
I was looking for a Drafts sync option over DropBox, since corporate workstations do not allow iCloud/iCloudDrive. Are there any plans for supporting this in the near future?
I cannot imagine that there is. Drafts is built for Apple platforms and relies on Apple technologies. Being able to utilise iCloud’s cloud kit for background syncing the database of Drafts, including from the web input service now offered, means iCloud is a foundational part of the infrastructure of Drafts.