First, congratulations on this new version. What I use Scrivener for is two things: I write very personal letters which I copy with my own hand in a second stage. I use Scrivener writing job-applications which I construct mostly from text-blocks I have already written and based on the vacancy-description and other reference material. Here are my first impressions:
The need to access reference-material while writing in full-screen-mode is now possible with the quick-reference-frame. This feature addresses an almost natural desire for me.
The collection perspective is certainly a useful one for in creative work for the hierarchical binder structure is but one of many structures with respect to content.
Now for the negative things:
I got lost in the overwhelming compile-options. With version 1 I got something I could continue to work with, no thoughts needed on my part.
The number of coloured buttons are quite high. I find colours very distracting in writing. Can you not go for shape (buttons ar more or less all square now) rather than colour ? The icons itself are not that intuitive. I know this is a a massive challenge for everyone. For example the full-screen icon has the two arrows on it. Full-screen-mode does not display any arrows. That is why it is not intuitive. If the button resembled full-screen mode, say a black button with wider white strip in the center, I believe it would serve its purpose more.
In case I work with a split editor I frequently lose track which part is “hot”. Maybe the highlighting could be more obvious.
Now something that is underrepresented in the design:
I can imagine that everyone working with scrivener loves the index-cards. I find they look more intimidating than useful in the inspector section and I think the screen space used is too big. What I can imagine is bringing up an index-card in an expose-type-of-fashion. Say, I moved to an edge of the text-editor and the index-card would come up looking like an index-card on the corkboard.
A process I would love to do in Scrivener:
Here is something I do very often. I start with a full reference-document and I need to extract some vital information from it for further use. On paper I would highlight the relevant parts for future quick reference. Digitally I would love to mark multiple sections in a pdf and then have an option to display only those sections or even to extract them with a click into a new document.
