Chapter 10 of 13

iCloud sync

With sync on, your layouts, rules and workspaces are the same on every Mac signed in to your iCloud account. Nothing is sent anywhere except to your own iCloud.

What syncs

Display assignments travel with the layouts. They are keyed by the display's identity and size, so they only take effect on a Mac that has that same display attached.

Turning it on

1. Sign in to the same iCloud account on each Mac, in System Settings › Apple Account.
2. In Lattika, open Settings › Sync and turn on Sync layouts, rules and workspaces with iCloud.

Do this on every Mac. The first Mac uploads its data; the others merge it with their own.

Sync is available only in the signed release of Lattika from lattika.com. A build without iCloud signing shows Unavailable here and the switch is greyed out.

How it works

Lattika merges iCloud's copy into its own when it starts, whenever iCloud reports a change from another Mac, and when you click Sync Now. Your own edits are uploaded two seconds after you make them. Last sync shows when the last upload happened; Up to date means the last one succeeded, and a warning shows the error otherwise.

iCloud delivers changes in its own time, usually within a minute, sometimes longer on a slow connection or right after signing in.

Conflicts

Each layout, rule and workspace carries the time it was last edited. When two Macs have different versions of the same item, the later edit wins, as a whole. If you edit the same layout on two Macs before they sync, one Mac's changes are lost.

Deleting wins over editing: if you delete a layout on one Mac and edit it on another, the deletion wins unless the edit is more recent than the deletion.

Display assignments and the default layout are combined. Where both Macs assign a layout to the same display, the Mac you are on keeps its own choice.

Turning it off

Turn the switch off. Lattika stops uploading and stops applying changes from other Macs. Your data stays as it is on each Mac, and the copy in iCloud is left in place.

If it does not work

• The switch is greyed out and says "Unavailable". This build is not signed for iCloud. Install Lattika from https://lattika.com/download.
• Nothing arrives on the other Mac. Check that both Macs are signed in to the same iCloud account and that sync is on in Lattika on both. Click Sync Now on the Mac that has the changes, wait a minute, then on the other one.
• A warning says "Could not read iCloud data". The data in iCloud was written by a newer version of Lattika. Update Lattika on this Mac.
• A warning says "Could not write iCloud data". iCloud key-value storage holds about one megabyte in total. A very large number of layouts and workspaces can exceed it. Delete workspaces you no longer need.
• A layout I deleted came back. It was edited on another Mac after you deleted it. Delete it again.