rsfinn57
Contributor
on my mac i add my dive log info in subsurface. Is there a way to sync this with my iphone. i am able to uploadmiphone files to the cloud then import them to my mac. I want to go the other way after editing info
Syncing subsurface to iphone
- Thread starter rsfinn57
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tmassey
Contributor
The app is called SubSurface – mobile. You download it from the App Store. Then, you go into subsurface on your computer and go into the settings. From there, you can create a cloud account. That will allow you to push your logs up from your computer to the cloud, and the Subsurface-mobile app can log into the cloud and pull them down.
It’s a little weird how it works. It doesn’t automatically synchronize: you have to save your log into the cloud when you are done on your computer. The mobile app I think is set up to automatically synchronize, though I have actually turned that off on mine. The mobile app isn’t great: you can tell it was made by programmers and not user interface designers…
But it does have the ability to download computer data if your computer supports Bluetooth. And it will then push it up into the cloud, where you can pull it down into your computer.
There is some documentation on the website that goes over this. Hopefully this will point you in the right direction.
ETA: after rereading your post a little better, it seems you already have the sync working from your iPhone to the computer. In which case you already have everything set up. The piece that you’re missing is that after you’re done editing things on the computer, you go the file menu and say save to the cloud, or something like that: I’m doing it from memory.
I ran into the same problem myself: how to get my computer changes pushed up to the cloud. Like I said, it’s not exactly intuitive. And then once you save to the cloud, you’re actually editing the stuff in the cloud. You then would have to re-save-as back to your local computer. It’s kind of strange.
So the way I deal with it is: I make all the changes I want to make on the computer and then do a file/save to save the changes locally. And then right before I close subsurface, I save to the cloud. Then I close subsurface because I’m done. If you were to continue to make changes that point, those changes won’t be on your local computer, you would be saving only to the cloud.
There is a way to open up the log from the cloud, and then save it to the local computer, overwriting your local file. Like I said, it’s not very intuitive. But: it’s worth Way, Way, Way more than I paid for it. I’m grateful that they have the functionality at least somewhat. It’s not bad once you figure out how to make it work.
It’s a little weird how it works. It doesn’t automatically synchronize: you have to save your log into the cloud when you are done on your computer. The mobile app I think is set up to automatically synchronize, though I have actually turned that off on mine. The mobile app isn’t great: you can tell it was made by programmers and not user interface designers…
But it does have the ability to download computer data if your computer supports Bluetooth. And it will then push it up into the cloud, where you can pull it down into your computer.There is some documentation on the website that goes over this. Hopefully this will point you in the right direction.
ETA: after rereading your post a little better, it seems you already have the sync working from your iPhone to the computer. In which case you already have everything set up. The piece that you’re missing is that after you’re done editing things on the computer, you go the file menu and say save to the cloud, or something like that: I’m doing it from memory.
I ran into the same problem myself: how to get my computer changes pushed up to the cloud. Like I said, it’s not exactly intuitive. And then once you save to the cloud, you’re actually editing the stuff in the cloud. You then would have to re-save-as back to your local computer. It’s kind of strange.
So the way I deal with it is: I make all the changes I want to make on the computer and then do a file/save to save the changes locally. And then right before I close subsurface, I save to the cloud. Then I close subsurface because I’m done. If you were to continue to make changes that point, those changes won’t be on your local computer, you would be saving only to the cloud.
There is a way to open up the log from the cloud, and then save it to the local computer, overwriting your local file. Like I said, it’s not very intuitive. But: it’s worth Way, Way, Way more than I paid for it.
I’m grateful that they have the functionality at least somewhat. It’s not bad once you figure out how to make it work.
OP
rsfinn57
Contributor
Thank you for the info. Ill keep playong with it
This sounds much more complicated than it should be. What you likely want to do is forget everything about the xml files. If you just open cloud storage and work with that directly then things should work as expected and more match the work flow that the developers use.
You're not actually working directly with the cloud. All the changes you make will be made to a local cache. When you save to cloud these local changes will be pushed to the cloud. If the cloud storage is set as online then just saving will push automatically, but you can have it set to offline and then saving will just save to the local copy, letting you push the changes to the cloud when you have access to internet.
This local cache is in a format that's actually much nicer to work with than xml and it also has the history of all the changes you've made to the cloud storage, since it's a git repository. It just happens to be hidden away a bit, to keep things simpler for users that don't care about local copies. I guess it makes it a bit harder for people that are in between the don't-care-about-local and the developers that knows how it's implemented. On Linux this local cache is placed under ~/.subsurface/cloudstorage/ and I would guess it's the same on mac os. On Windows it should be under %AppData%\Subsurface\cloudstorage\
tmassey
Contributor
Thank you for the suggestions. You’re right: if you forget about local, you could just work on the cloud and it would make things a lot simpler.
I’m weird, I guess. I prefer on-prem. I’m far from anti-cloud, but I want control, and independent ability to protect my data. Get off my lawn.
It sounds like the developers need to better document how they envision this process to be used. It sounds like they have struck a good balance between cloud convenience and user control: they just need to let people to know about it!
As for the XML: I’m not a huge XML fan, but I *am* a fan of plain-text-like data. I have absolutely modified the XML directly to make changes to my SubSurface data. I’d hate to lose that.
Anyway, thank you again for the details: for cloud-native fans, simply leaving the data on the cloud will certainly simplify things.
Belzelbub
Contributor
From what you said, it should mostly be working. You may need to force the sync on the phone.
What I usually do is download the profile using Subsurface Mobile on my iPhone. When I get home, I go into Subsurface on my Mac and make any changes I need to. That will then sync to Subsurface Mobile on my iPad and iPhones. You may need to force a manual sync.
Open Subsurface Mobile. Click the Menu icon at the bottom left, then click Dive Management. That should open another menu.
You can hit the "Manual sync with cloud" to do this once, or you can also check the "Auto cloud sync" button if you want it ready to go as soon as you open it.
Thank you for the suggestions. You’re right: if you forget about local, you could just work on the cloud and it would make things a lot simpler.
I’m weird, I guess. I prefer on-prem. I’m far from anti-cloud, but I want control, and independent ability to protect my data. Get off my lawn.
I think you misunderstood me. What I tried to say is that what's called "cloud storage" in Subsurface is actually a local, plain text, storage that is version controlled, that happens to have automatic backups pushed to the cloud. Many developers originally kept their xml files version controlled by git locally, it was just more convenient to have it managed automatically by Subsurface, and it made it possible to sync with the phone app.
Go and look in ~/.subsurface/cloudstorage/ or %AppData%\Subsurface\cloudstorage\, depending on platform. You should find the dives sorted by year. Each dive is it's own plain text file that is easy to modify. You'll need a bit of git knowledge to create new commits though.
If you don't want to push backups to the Subsurface cloud, and use that to sync between different devices, then it's not as convenient. However, if you're fine with the cloud as a backup, then there is no reason to avoid the "cloud" storage for local editing and independent backups. It's nicer than the xml format.
It's a fine balance between documenting things for the average user that doesn't care how things are stored, as long as it "just works, and all the intermediate levels of power users that want to know how to do the specific use case they care about. There is always a need for more diverse group to help with the documentation in projects like this.
tmassey
Contributor
I’ll check out the details of what you’re describing, thank you for clarifying.
I certainly understand that wherever you draw the line they’re going to be people unhappy with where you have drawn it. My point is this: all of this information seems to be completely unknown and un acknowledged, at any level of detail. I’m not saying you need to be documenting file formats in the user doc and teaching people how to use git. I am saying a couple of paragraphs on the philosophy of data storage and how the software developers envision that working – particularly something so contrary to typical file storage concepts – would be well worth the effort. For those people for whom the magic of the cloud happily hides all those details, it’s two paragraphs they can forget about. For the rest of us, it gives us a great deal of strategic information that we can use to best work with the software the way the developers intended — or at least contemplate.
And this is especially true when it seems that there was a strategy, especially one that fits everybody’s preconceived ideas, and then developers created a totally different strategy. Why would you even go looking for such a thing, when you have already found what you expected to find? Throw us advanced users a bone!
Just my two cents, which is worth even less now post inflation. Again, not a complaint or criticism. Just an observation from my perspective, which is probably not even worth as much as you paid for it.
I certainly understand that wherever you draw the line they’re going to be people unhappy with where you have drawn it.
My point is this: all of this information seems to be completely unknown and un acknowledged, at any level of detail. I’m not saying you need to be documenting file formats in the user doc and teaching people how to use git. I am saying a couple of paragraphs on the philosophy of data storage and how the software developers envision that working – particularly something so contrary to typical file storage concepts – would be well worth the effort. For those people for whom the magic of the cloud happily hides all those details, it’s two paragraphs they can forget about. For the rest of us, it gives us a great deal of strategic information that we can use to best work with the software the way the developers intended — or at least contemplate.And this is especially true when it seems that there was a strategy, especially one that fits everybody’s preconceived ideas, and then developers created a totally different strategy. Why would you even go looking for such a thing, when you have already found what you expected to find?
Throw us advanced users a bone! Just my two cents, which is worth even less now post inflation.
Again, not a complaint or criticism. Just an observation from my perspective, which is probably not even worth as much as you paid for it.
I move between loading dives to PC, iPhone or iPad whichever is convenient at the time. All have local storage which I manually sync to the Cloud. What I like is I can access my dive history from whichever device I choose; whether I have connectability or not.
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