Chapter 43

Your Library: Backup and Sync

Chapters 40 to 42 were about writing pages. This one is about keeping them.

Your library is not part of any campaign, so a campaign backup does not carry it. It has its own file, its own restore, and its own quiet way of keeping two of your own devices level with each other.

Two file types, and they are not interchangeable:

.ftbk is a campaign backup. Chapter 31, Backing Up and Restoring Campaigns.
.ftlib is a library backup. Everything you have written, both rule sets, one file.

Pick the wrong one and the app says so rather than trying: a .ftbk handed to the library restore gets "That isn't a library backup", and a line telling you campaign backups are restored from the Campaigns screen instead.

Where the two actions live

Both sit at the foot of your own library. Go to Browse, latch the Mine pill so the shelves show your pages rather than the shipped ones (chapter 36, Finding Things), and scroll past the category tiles. Two rows:

Back up my library
Restore from a backup…

Under them, a line in italics repeating the thing worth repeating: a backup covers your whole library, 2014 and 2024 together, in one file. The shelves above are scoped to one rule set. The file never is.

On the shipped reference face, with Mine unlatched, neither row appears. There is nothing of yours there to back up.

Backing up

Press Back up my library. The app writes one file named far-table-library- plus today's date, ending in .ftlib, then offers the same two destinations the campaign backup uses:

To a drive or folder… the operating system's save dialog.
Somewhere else… the share sheet: AirDrop or Save to Files on iPhone and iPad, AirDrop or Mail on a Mac, Nearby Share on Windows, Quick Share on Android.

Cancel the save dialog or dismiss the share and the app tells you the backup was cancelled and nothing was saved, rather than claiming a backup it did not make. An empty library gets a note that there is nothing to back up yet.

The working copy the app stages while it does this is deleted afterwards, every time, whether the backup saved, shared, or failed.

Restoring, with the preview in front

Press Restore from a backup…. If the app is holding a safety copy from your last restore, it asks first where to read from:

A backup file opens the file browser.
Undo my last restore is the copy Far Table saved for you automatically, just before the last restore ran, dated to the day and time. You never made it, and it is not visible to any file browser, so this row is the only way back to it.

Then the app reads the file without writing anything, and shows a dialog headed Restore your library? with the date the backup was made and one plain sentence of arithmetic: restoring adds so many pages, updates so many, removes so many, leaves so many unchanged.

If the restore would cost you something, it names the cost by entry, in full, never truncated:

Only on this device. Pages the backup does not have. Restoring takes them out.
Newer here. Pages you changed on this device more recently than the backup's copy. Restoring puts the backup's version back.

At the bottom: this covers both rule sets, nothing is merged, and your library as it is now is saved first, so this can be undone. That last clause is the safety copy being made, and it is why Undo my last restore exists the next time you open the chooser.

The confirm button changes with the stakes. It reads Restore when nothing on this device is lost, and Replace my library when something is. Never mind backs out.

If your library changes while the dialog is open, the numbers are worked out again and a gold-ruled note tells you to have another look before you commit.

When a restore does not run

A backup that matches what you already have stops with "Already up to date". A backup written by a newer version of Far Table says it is too new and to update the app first. Everything unreadable, wrong file, damaged, truncated, reads the same way to you and says so.

Failures are dialogs you dismiss, never a message that slides away, and they all end with the same sentence: nothing was changed, your library is exactly as it was.

One thing that does not work, so do not plan around it: tapping a .ftlib file in Finder, Files, or an AirDrop notification does not start a restore. Carry the file however you like, then come back into the app and use Restore from a backup….

Pair sync between your own two devices

If you have paired a phone to your Mac or Windows machine for its camera (chapter 34, Pairing Your Phone), that pair carries your library too. There is no second pairing to do and no setting to switch on.

What it does, without being asked:

Syncs about two seconds after any edit on either side, artwork included.
Syncs on every reconnect.
Syncs immediately when you tap the lamp line.

It moves the whole catalog, then only the entry text and pictures the other device is missing. Both directions. Nothing is lost by being on the wrong device.

The lamp line

Under the Your library heading, on the Browse face with Mine latched, sits one small dot and one italic line. That is the whole user interface for sync. It is pressable, and pressing it means sync now.

What it says:

Nothing at all, if this install is not paired.
Not synced yet, or Last synced 5 minutes ago, with a settled olive dot. Just after a run it reads up to date with the other device, just now.
Catching up · 3 of 11, with a gold dot pulsing, while a run is going.
Last synced an hour ago · iPhone not reachable, hollow dot, when the other device is asleep or away. This is not an error and never colored like one.
The other device needs an update to sync, when one side is running an older Far Table.

Two quiet suffixes may appear on the settled line. "2 entries needed repair" means both devices edited the same page and the app picked a winner on its own. "1 picture was lost" means artwork that had gone missing from both devices was tidied out of the entry. Neither stops anything.

The last-synced time survives quitting the app and is remembered per pair.

The same line, in dark clothing, appears on the phone's Mirror screen, so you can watch a sync finish from whichever device you happen to be holding.

Sync is deliberately undramatic. It has no red state, no dialog, no button to press twice. If it cannot reach the other device it says so and waits.

The standalone Far Table SRD app

Far Table SRD is a separate app you can install on its own: the same reference, the same cards, the same shelves, the same editor, without sessions, maps, combat, or the Mirror. It opens on Browse rather than Contents.

It is genuinely a different app, not a mode. Installed alongside Far Table on the same phone, the two keep separate libraries, and a page written in one does not appear in the other. Pair sync does not bridge them either; pair sync joins your desktop to your phone, not one app to its neighbor.

The only bridge is a library backup file:

Back up the library in one app.
Carry the .ftlib across however you like: AirDrop, a thumb drive, a cloud folder, email to yourself. The file does not care.
Open the other app and use its Restore from a backup… row.

That last step is not optional. Handing the file to the other app from outside does nothing; the import only happens through the in-app restore action, with the same preview and the same undo copy described above.

Next: chapter 44, What Far Table Does Not Do.