It would great if there was a way of sharing projects with editors so they could feedback and suggest changes that could be accepted or rejected. I like the way google docs works allowing you to respond to individual comments.
It seems to me L&L would open up a whole new customer base if this was the case. All the editors I know of work with Word, and the only sensible way of integrating changes is to do it by hand. I am sure they would embrace Scrivener if this was possible.
Some existing features provide what you’re looking for, I think. For example if I mark a phrase with an inline annotation in red, indicating I think it should be deleted, then all you have to do is walk through red annotations using the Edit/Find/Find by Formatting tool which selects the entire annotation. If you approve the deletion, with it being selected, you merely hit the delete key. If you disapprove, hit the Shift-Cmd-A shortcut to remove the annotation, leaving the original text fully intact.
Likewise additions could be handled with another colour and your approval/disapproval process is merely the opposite.
You could probably do something similar with the revision marking tool itself, with overstrikes for deletions and coloured text for additions. This will be a bit nicer when we add a menu to strip out all struck-through text in 3.0.
Is the ‘Compare’ feature in Snapshots robust enough to support ‘editorial review’?
Potential workflow using Compare feature for editor to use Scrivener
Author: Saves a Snapshot of all texts (is there a ‘Snapshot All’ button somewhere or do you have to do this for every single document in the binder?)
Author Saves/sends project to editor
Editor: Edits each document in the binder and creates another Snapshot
Editor: Saves/sends project back to author
Author: Uses Compare feature to compare the Author Snapshot and the Editor Snapshot
Author: Leaves the edited text or uses the Rollback button to reject an edit
This would all be easier with a built-in workflow:
A. Select Author-to-Editor Workflow
A.1. Snapshot All and title as ‘Author Version 1’
A.2. Package only texts (not research, templates, clippings, etc.)
B. Select Editor Workflow
B.1. Enter Edit Mode
B.2. After editing, Snapshot All and title snapshots as ‘Author Version 1 Edits’
B.3. Auto-create a Collection of ‘Author Version 1 Edits’ for all documents edited
B.4. Package only texts
C. Select Author Review of Edits using the Collection of edited documents
C.1. Import ‘Author Version 1 Edits’
C.2. Use the Compare feature to review edits
C.3. Leave edits or use the Rollback feature to reject edits
C.4. Save as ‘Author Version 2’
You could probably simplify that a good deal when considering that comparison can be done between a snapshot and the current state of the text. You don’t need a separate author snapshot and editor snapshot to compare between—the way the editor left the text is suitable for comparison all by itself.
Another potential simplification is having the editor snapshot before editing, rather than blanket snapshotting everything just in case. The only really good reason to snapshot something is because it is about to change. But if one wished to play it extra safe they could do so up front and no matter if they needed a hundred snapshots or whatever it takes. As for doing that: if you have more than one thing selected then both the regular and titled snapshot features work in plural.
Rollbacks could be used to reject edits in an entire chunk of text. You can also use copy and paste to restore from the author snapshot created before editing. Triple-click selects an entire paragraph, so that would be an easy way to revert most edits.
The problem with that idea is that templates and clippings are text. Lots of non-draft material might be text. It’s probably better to leave that part up to people to figure out what is important to send and what can be left out to keep the .zip file smaller.
Otherwise I think some of what you’re talking about will be a lot easier in 3.0. I’ll just say for now that with the exception of some kind of dedicated author/editor mode, the capabilities you are looking for are pretty much addressed. You won’t even have to bother with snapshots—it’ll handle the safekeeping and listing of changed materials automatically.