Add element to Stage Play , auto-complete issue

Scrivener Scrivener on Linux (Unofficial)
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I am writing a Stage Play (UK format) a the moment. An issue that is giving me grief is this: I have an auto-complete list of every Character. However if I begin any word in the dialogue with a letter that corresponds with the first letter of a Character, the auto-complete suggestion pops-up with the name of the Character. ESC does nothing. If I ignore the suggestion and keep typing nothing happens. The only way I can get around it is to stop typing, grab the mouse, then move the cursor back to the word.

I could turn off auto-complete altogether but that would require me to type out the full character name for every dialogue entry.

It occurred to me that the problem may be due to the elements in the UK Stage Play format as the element ‘Character’ is not included, only ‘Character & Dialogue’.

Compare this to the the setup shown in this thread and this thread.

I fear that if I add a ‘Character’ element and change the element ‘Character & Dialogue’ to just ‘Dialogue’ that most, if not all, of the play will be converted to General Text.

BTW I am using Scrivener Version: 3.1.4.0 (1918386) 64-bit - 01 Feb 2023 in Manjaro linux using Wine 8.1-1.

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Esc should make the suggestion go away.
I just confirmed, using your parameters.

Try this (as a test) :
Display Project/Project targets
Click on the popup so that it has focus.
Esc should close that popup.
Does it?

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Thanks for the reply Vincent. Yes, your suggestion works on that popup, but not on the auto-complete popup when I am typing dialogue in the Character & Dialogue element even if I highlight the suggestion and hit ESC. I have to stop typing and use the mouse to put the cursor in the space where the word will go and then hit ESC. But I can already resume typing more quickly by just using the mouse to insert the cursor and keep typing.

Ideally, the Character and Dialogue elements would be separate, failing that, ESC should remove the popup without any further action.

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Odd.

It works fine at my end with image

But otherwise, I don’t see why you couldn’t create your own dialogue and character element.
If you are afraid that this would mess things up, just don’t delete the Character & Dialogue one. (?)
After that, it is only a matter of how comfortable you’d be to set things up so that they sequentially change from one to another properly.
And likely to adapt your compile format later on.

@popcornflix

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Sorry, I stayed out of this because I don’t write in Stage Play format.

I would suggest experimenting to see if you can create 2 separate elements for Character and Dialogue that will share the same first line. Character would be one element, and when you press TAB, it would change to Dialogue which would have narrower margins.

This way, the auto-complete for Character Names would not invade the dialogue.

I’ve never done this in Scrivener, so there’s no guarantee that it can even be done. But that would be my best guess.

1 Like
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@AmberV Amber, are you able to replicate this ESC key issue in your Scrivener running Wine 8? I don’t know whether it is a Wine issue or a Manjaro Linux issue. I had this issue 2.5 yrs ago and had to go back to Windows. I’m hoping that isn’t necessary this time.

As Vincent was unable to replicate this using Windows, this issue should probably be in the Scrivener on Linux forum category.

BTW, is it possible to have Character and Dialogue elements, tab separated on the same line (same formatting), with different auto-complete lists in the Stage Play UK format or a custom format?

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Yeah, that’s still a thing on Linux. I’ve never really noticed it because I only use completions on demand, via the shortcuts in the Edit ▸ Completions ▸ submenu. Couple of notes:

  • I just tried throwing a macro on my keyboard that executes Enter+Ctrl+Z, and that worked fine. So if one doesn’t mind Shift+Esc or something, that could do.
  • Personally I would say the matter of pressing Esc should not even arise however. I have never before encountered a “suggestion” tool in text editors that forced you to stop writing and deal with it, either to confirm or deny it, on the very first letter no less. That seems to me less efficient than just writing. Everything I’ve ever used lets you keep typing, and the list gets more accurate as you type—or if nothing is left in the list that matches what you’ve typed, it goes away automatically and life goes on.

Again that isn’t something I’ve ever really noticed since I always want it when I press the shortcut.

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@AmberV Thanks Amber. As I will need the shortcut for the Character with every new line of dialogue, unless I misunderstand, I don’t think that will work for me. I suspect the ESC key is a Wine issue so I have posted a question on the Wine forum.

This leaves the other question: Is it possible to have Character and Dialogue elements, tab separated on the same line (same formatting), with different auto-complete lists in the Stage Play UK format or a custom format? If not, I may have to go back to Windows (ugh!).

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Yeah, I think there is some confusion, my main suggestion was to make a macro that simulates what Esc does, to about the same speed, not to turn auto-completion off.

I don’t think that is going to be different based on what platform one runs the software on. Interface differences we would expect, but core programmed behaviours in the text editor itself, such as when to show completions rather than how, are going to be indicative of Scrivener’s functioning, not Wine.

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Thanks Amber, I suspected that was the case. However, thanks to @Vincent_Vincent, I now have a solution, albeit one with Windows.