I should have said, I find it just fine looking, it doesn’t need additional prettying.
For me the main point is just how great it works.
Hello,
What I initially meant, wasn’t that Scrivener needs a complete featureless look (minimalistic look like iA Writer), but there could be better interface styles. Let me give an example:
Please look at the following screenshot of Adobe Photoshop CS 6, which is a picture software:
http://img.creativemark.co.uk/uploads/images/324/14324/img3File.png
This looks amazing, although this is the feature richest applications for photographers, media designers, etc. And the look doesn’t get old, they are doing this now for three Photoshop versions, and it still WORKS.
Those clumpy Buttons and Sliders don’t look good at all…
You really think Photoshop looks amazing? Don’t get me wrong, it looks fine and does the job, but it’s just a dark and functional, and it is not something that users often bring up as “beautiful”. A dark UI wouldn’t suit Scrivener at all (given that most users will be writing on white “paper”), and nor would palettes and such. Scrivener uses a standard Mac UI - exactly as laid out by Apple. If you don’t like the look of buttons and sliders, then you probably need to take that up with Apple. 
Completely agree: beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but genuine functionality isn’t, and if Scrivener looked like that screenshot I’d never get any writing done.
Just how does that example comport with the minimalist (“iA Writer, OmmWriter”) aesthetic originally asked for?
I happen to know a lot of people in graphic design etc. who work with Photoshop, but I never heard any of them claim Photoshop to be beautiful. On the contrary, most comments are in the line of “yeah, it’s butt-ugly, but there’s no way around it”. And having a look on the screenshot, I agree (at least for the butt-ugly-part). Of course, this is a matter of taste, and not all tastes are alike. And for software that deals with images, it is probably a good idea to keep everything around the workspace as dark as possible.
Then again, Scrivener’s colours are changeable. I’m sure one could create a look and feel that’s quite dark, if one’s more comfortable with that. The controls, of course, are OS X-specific, but there’s also the possibility to choose “graphite” appearance in the system settings instead of “blue”.
For me both the look and the functionality of Scrivener are perfect. I don’t desire anything else.
We just need a lot of power in a beauty (that it’s already) form…
p.s.: and some more features as we go…
p.p.s.: more powerful styles, maybe
That’s a cool look you did there. I can’t figure out how to change my set up to look like that. Is there a video that would show me how? A forum post that details it? Also, how hard is it to change back to the default when working on another project?
Photoshop has a dark UI because it allows its users to pick out colours better on the canvas. Now, imagine what Scrivener would be like with black text, on a white background, surrounded by a black UI.
For the most part these are default colours. The main exception is the fixed width editor background colour, which I changed to dark grey to match the Ulysses look. So you need fixed width editing turned on in the Editor preference pane (I think I recall a setting of around 580 width matches the Ulysses default). I also played with the margins a bit here.
The rest is all tweaks to the project. The Binder only affects the left column, done with the View/Binder Affects/ sub-menu command. I’ve then set up clicks in the left column (which is an Outliner view with only the Title & Synopsis column) to automatically load in the text editor on the right by clicking the double-facing arrow in the footer bar. Then I hid the header and footer bars for both editors (View/Layout/).
As to your last question, check out the Window/Layouts/Manage Layouts tool. You can save this look (the part not set up in preferences that is) and apply it to other projects, and quickly switch in between it and other views. But each project has its own layout. If you create a new project after having done this, it will look normal. Everything that you can do in the menus or buttons within the project window is saved into the project’s appearance settings—that project alone.
Working everyday with the Creative Suite, I don’t think it looks great. But it is logically laid out, and its floating/dockable palettes allow for quick access to the thousand available features.
I don’t think Scrivener should follow that path. Creative Suite tries to emulate the drawing/cutting table, where you have several tools needed to develop photos, cut films, apply filters, add text snippets to a grid. Scrivener is your whiteboard, your notepad and your typewriter. Different concepts, to be implemented in a different way. The way its parts are laid out seems very handy to me.
What I would love in Scrivener, is a reorganization of the menus. I like Nisus Writer for the great order it could achieve with so many features. Scrivener has some areas that are not yet clear to me (an everyday user, older than Keith and with a slower mind).
For example, I find that the Convert to Folder command (relevant to structure) should not live in the same menu as Convert Formatting to the Default Style (relevant to text style). Also, I’m a bit confused by the presence of two Convert menu items (one in the Document menu, the other in the Text menu, and with some analogies to the Convert Formatting with the Default Style command).
Having to deal with so many features is not easy for a developer. The UI has grown version after version, and what I like most in Scrivener is that it is growing after listening to the many users. In the end, it is Keith to decide, but there is always something of us in this application.
Paolo
Excellent - thank you for the detailed reply. I love Scrivener, and this has made it so much better for me - I love tying the two panes together with the double-facing arrow. Can’t wait to use the Layouts Manager more! Huge increase in my understanding of this app and its customizability.
Would you guys ever do a video with the details of the customizations available, maybe including vastly different looks and feels? Even a user video on youtube so it doesn’t have to be an expensive undertaking.
I would LOVE an updated, more modern look for Scrivener…
Have you actually read the rest of this thread? What does an “updated, more modern look” even mean? Scrivener uses the standard Mac UI - the standard toolbar using graphical elements that are based on those recommended by Apple for modern UIs, the standard Cocoa buttons provided by Apple for modern program interfaces, the standard source lists as used by other Apple programs, and so on. So do you mean that you wish Apple would provide OS X with an updated, more modern look (whatever that means), because you don’t like the way Apple programs look? Or do you mean you would like us to completely change all the UI elements so that they override the Apple UI code just to try to look different? Scrivener looks like a modern Mac app, so I don’t really understand requests for a “more modern” look. I think you must mean something other than “modern”?
(Before replying, please read Ioa’s - AmberV’s - first two replies to this thread.)
Yep, the binder is a good example of a UI element that should never be monochrome, because of the amount of information its icons need to convey.
Never say never
You were the one who said they looked terrible - I was just agreeing! It would indeed be terrible trying to navigate a monochrome binder like that. Even Apple realised this and reverted to colour for iTunes, reserving monochrome for source lists that require fewer icons.
Sorry, this is a translation problem. When I say “terrible”, I mean beautiful and very simple. When you work 4 or 5 hours a day on scrivener for years, and you’ve built your own Binder, I think the problem does not arise. You know where things are. Now, maybe for new users, actually, the color is needed, new users or for thick novels like dictionaries that you tell the story of man since time immemorial to the present day.
Well, document icons can be customised via Documents > Change Icon, so you can always create your own monochrome binder if you like. Set up some document templates with the default icons you want for different file types and you’re all set.
Simpler still, you can invoke the hidden preference to hide binder icons entirely (c.f. §D.4.1 in the user manual).