Sync & backup

The three options

Choose in Settings under Sync. There is no Lamp Bible account and no Lamp Bible server. Even with sync switched on, the only parties involved are you and the storage you chose.

What syncs

• Your notes, devotionals with their images and audio, and every highlight set with its themes.
• Reading plan progress, and which plans you follow.
• Your settings: translation and text size, hidden translations and lexicons, lexicon order, word hints, highlight colours, reading rate, reminder, quiz age group and devotional text size.
• Modules you imported yourself — translations, dictionaries, commentaries, books, plans and quizzes, including Bibles you imported.
• Slide decks made on a Mac, which iPhone and iPad receive to view.

Some things deliberately stay on the device that made them:

• Bundled modules, which every install already has.
• Your WebDAV password and the choice of sync method.
• Search and navigation history, where you are in each book, the active highlight set and style, the read-aloud voice, and the tool panel’s position.

How it runs

Sync runs when the app opens and each time you return to it, a few seconds after you stop editing, and once more as you leave it if anything is waiting to go. While the app is open it also checks every half-minute for changes from your other devices. Sync Now forces a pass and reports an error if one fails.

Sync works file by file. One file that fails — a server timeout, say — is reported, and the rest still sync. While you are writing, an icon in the Notes panel header and in the devotional editor shows whether your latest change has left the device: synced, syncing, waiting to sync, or unavailable.

What is in the folder

The library is ordinary files, which you can see in the Files app or on your server. Each file is a compressed .lamp module:

Lamp Bible/
├── lamp-bible.lampsync      settings, progress, and the list of library files
├── Notes/notes.lamp         My Notes
├── Devotionals/             your devotional collections
├── DevotionalMedia/         their images and audio
├── Highlights/              one file per highlight set
├── Translations/            modules you imported, by type
├── Dictionaries/
├── Commentaries/
├── Books/
├── Plans/
├── Quizzes/
└── Workspaces/              slide decks and other Mac workspace files

Setting up WebDAV

WebDAV needs a server URL, a username and a password. The folder at that URL must already exist. Test Connection checks the details before you switch; afterwards, Settings shows whether the server is connected. The password is kept in the Keychain and never synced.

The server must support the standard methods — PROPFIND, GET, HEAD, PUT, DELETE and MKCOL — with conditional writes, and Basic authentication. Nextcloud, ownCloud and Synology all do. Synology servers, which can be slow to show an upload back, are waited on rather than written twice.

Switching method

Changing the sync method asks what to do with what is already on this device:

• Migrate — keep your library and send it to the new location on the first sync there: notes, devotionals, highlights, their media, and your settings. It is merged with any library already there, and nothing on the server is removed. Modules you imported earlier stay installed on this device but are not copied across, so import them again if your other devices need them. Migrating to Local Only simply keeps your library on the device.
• Switch Only — start fresh. After a second confirmation, Wipe & Switch deletes your notes, devotionals and highlights from this device, then switches.

Conflicts

Notes and devotionals merge entry by entry, so editing two different notes on two devices never collides. When the same entry changed on both, the newer change wins.

A true conflict — the same entry, different text, and the same change time — is not settled silently. Sync keeps this device’s copy, sets the other aside, and carries on. A banner offers Resolve — in the Notes panel for notes, and in the list of your writing for devotionals, which opens the conflicts on its own when one arrives. Settings → Sync lists every conflict with a Resolve button too.

You can keep either version, keep both, or settle every conflict at once. Both versions of a note are kept in the one note; both versions of a devotional become two devotionals, the other device’s marked “[From other device]”. A devotional collection with a conflict waiting does not upload until you choose.

A highlight set syncs as a whole, and the newer copy wins. Settings are merged one at a time: each takes the value from the device that changed it, and one changed on both takes the later change. Ticking or unticking a reading, and following or dropping a plan, is merged the same way, so an untick on one device is not undone by another.

Deletions

Deleting a note, a devotional, a highlight set, a single highlight or a theme is recorded, so your other devices delete it too rather than restoring it. An entry edited on another device after you deleted it survives. A file that simply goes missing from the server is never taken as a deletion. Deleted files are remembered for 180 days; a device that has been away longer than that brings them back once.

Upgrading from an earlier version

Version 1.2 changed how a library is laid out, and earlier versions cannot read the new layout. Update Lamp Bible on every device that shares a library before moving it.

• A library only your iPhone or iPad kept — the app asks Move to the new sync? Choose Move once your other devices are up to date. Until you do, nothing syncs: the app asks again the next time it opens, and Settings → Sync explains why, with a Move Library button.
• A new, empty location is set up automatically.
• A device still on an older version is noticed, and Settings asks you to update it. Until you do, it stops syncing or misses changes made elsewhere.

Backup strategy

Sync is not the same thing as backup. A reasonable belt-and-braces routine:

• Use iCloud Drive or WebDAV, so a lost device is not a lost library.
• Back up the sync folder itself — iCloud Drive and most WebDAV servers can keep versions, or snapshot the folder on a schedule.
• Periodically export your notes and devotionals to markdown — plain files that will outlive any app, this one included.

See Import & export for the export formats.