Add the titels (of a doc / folder shown in Scrivener) to the file names of the rtf files or rename "content.rtf" to "title xyz.rtf"?

Thank you ! So it is restricted to entire files / docs only, not to a part of them, a paragraph, text phrase, I guess, so it would not be possible to add text e.g. somewhere in the middle of a text.

Indeed <$include> only works with complete docs, not parts of them. But you should keep in mind that Binder items just might represent structural parts of the whole text, like a chapter. They also can be just a small part of a chapter—which can be addressed with <$include>.

To be more specific: When you write alyrics there probably is a Binder item with the self-explanatory title “Chorus”. You write it, and every other Chorus, let’s name it “Chorus again” consists only of <$include:chorus>. So there is only one place you have to edit it in. And the “Chorus again” elements in the Binder are not at all confusing, quite the opposite: they show the lyrics structure exactly.

On the other hand, it can be a bit confusing in a prose text if there are elements here and there that are actually parts of larger units (like a chapter) and exist only for the technical reason of being able to include them elsewhere in the project.

But there is a solution for this as well: The included docs don’t have to be part of the Drafts folder! You could keep them in the Research folder or even better create a special folder dedicated solely to text snippets for inclusion in the draft.

And if you don’t hit Return at the end of one of these snippets they may very well be used somewehere in the middle of the text:

The Terminator pointed the gun at the T-1000, snarled with a heavy Austrian accent: “<$include:Terminator Signature Line 2>”, and blasted its frozen body into tiny little pieces.

(Whether it makes sense to use an included document in this particular case, rather than simply writing the actual text and replacing it project-wide if needed, is a different story).

PS: If you think that it is not very elegant to name each chorus after the first one “Chorus again”, and all choruses, including the first one, should simply be called “Chorus”—read the Scrivener manual, chapter 10.1.5 “Inserting text from other documents”, there is indeed another way to handle this, a document link. Which by the way is another good reason why Binder titles and internal file names in Scrivener are not the same.

Thank you very much!

Yes, in a lyrics’ structure <$include> might work very well, because of that structure. But in a e.g. a structure like text within text (not after or before text), it is not workable, I could imagine.

Which by the way is another good reason why Binder titles and internal file names in Scrivener are not the same.

I would not say they must / should be the same in any case, it would be enough if the file name contained the title. So the file could be identified outside of Scrivener easily. The same with the folders. If there is only one file, content.rtf, in each folder, one project of mine obviously has 4752 folders (their names consisting of letters and digits - instead of the title or the title and other characters - with a single content.rtf in. So why should it not be possible to just give the folder or / and content.rtf the same name as the item in Scrivener has or the title name as a part of the file name. Does absolutely not make any sense to me, but I do not have any idea of constructing a program or of anything else of course.

This whole conversation is bemusing. It’s like arguing over the naming convention of the files inside of an unzipped .docx file, or .epub file, or maybe the column naming in a MySQL database. That’s how you should think of a “.scriv” folder—it is an unzipped file format. It isn’t meant to be messed about with, or scanned through on a regular basis, and certainly not edited directly. So if it is meant purely for the software to work with it efficiently, who cares what the naming schemes are?

Because maybe then you would be even more confused about whether you should be looking in here or not. :slight_smile:

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Okey, never heard such good argument before.

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The folder name is an arbitrary alphanumeric string because it has to be unique. It has to be unique so that links will unambiguously point to a single destination, and so that links will survive name changes in the Binder.

The document file name always being content.rtf allows Scrivener to identify the content files programmatically, which is very useful for searching, using the Compile command, and pretty much everything else that Scrivener does. It also means that it doesn’t matter whether the Binder title is a valid file name, or even whether it exists at all.

As @AmberV said, though, the Scrivener project is not designed to be edited with any tool other than Scrivener. That you see that capability as essential suggests that your desired way of working is not a good fit for Scrivener.

The folder name is an arbitrary alphanumeric string because it has to be unique.

So just adding the title to such an alphanumeric, unique string would not work obviously.

That you see that capability as essential suggests that your desired way of working is not a good fit for Scrivener.

I would not say seeing that capability as essential (I wonder how this impression came about). Actually my desired way of working would be to solely use Scrivener / a single word processor, otherwise it would normally make no sense at all. (Trying) to use other word processors is an unpleasant, inconvenient tool / aid to compensate for the fact that Scrivener doesn’t work as desired / as it should. It would be very great, if Scrivener did what it might be designed for.

No, it would not, because the string needs to remain constant as the title changes.

“Doesn’t work as you desire” is not the same as “doesn’t work as it should.”

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Funny statement, but yes yes, of course, absolutely right, how could it be the same?

I may be off base on this, but I highly suspect this is likely because you edited Scrivener’s internal project file(s) outside of Scrivener and broke Scriveners internal structure and the bookmark(s)?

Re: recipes - are you using the recipe template?

Re: lists - that I understand. There are known issues with lists, but that is another topic.

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No, no, I didn’t.

No, I don’t, I even didn’t know there is one. Is it usable? Where can I find it?

Yes, so it looks like we have three other topics here.