Thanks Robert and Jennifer,
I had just organised a screen shot like Robert suggested and then saw your post Jennifer, and it worked! Phew, that’s a relief. I had better get back to that interactive tutorial, sigh…
If you want to skip to the part of the Interactive tutorial that talks about the view modes, look at Part2/Step 7: “Changing Editor Views”. That will demonstrate what the toolbar icons look like when you’re in Scrivenings mode, versus single-document mode.
So what’s the point of being able to turn off Scrivenings view on a folder?
The Folder might have text assocaited with it; the icon changes in that situation from a folder to a folder with a document overlayed.
Or the folder contents – such as images – might be massive enough to pose a performance issue if loaded all at once.
Katherine
I still don’t get it:
- Document (leaf node)- I can’t turn off document view - what would be the point?
- Folder with notes - I can turn off document view, but the notes are always shown in the inspector regardless. Performance issue? A couple of decades ago we had to use Word’s draft mode with long documents because the print view’s performance was inadequate. Not so with today’s Word. Scrivener showed up in 2007, long after I quit using draft mode in Word.
- Manuscript folder - toggles between showing project notes and no text or showing all text and the inspector view.
In summary, I don’t see the benefit of a (relatively) secret switch that hides all the manuscript text and makes the author think their work has been lost.
Scrivener costs $45 to buy and yet people write and sell Scrivener courses for hundreds of dollars because it’s seen to take time and effort to learn. Folders with associated document text and documents containing other documents seem to add to the potential for confusion.
Many people absolutely love the features that you find confusing.
The multi-document view, and the ability to toggle it on and off have been a core features of Scrivener since its inception. Scrivenings mode is discussed in Step 7 of Scrivener’s Tutorial: that’s not what I would call obscure.
The Inspector can show Project Notes, Document Notes, Comments and Footnotes, Keywords, or the document Synopsis and metadata, completely independently of the Editor pane’s view. See Step 5 of the Tutorial for a discussion of the Inspector’s functions. The Inspector can also be disabled completely, using either the View -> Layout menu or the ‘i’ icon on the toolbar.
Pretty much any program complex enough to be useful will take time and effort to learn. I’ve seen courses on TextEdit, too.
Katherine
I don’t find the multi document view confusing. As you say, it’s one of the benefits of using Scrivener.
Folders containing folders and documents are a great way of organising a long document. The potential confusion point is that a folder is not just a container, it has the same text holding capability as a document, and a document can also be a container for other documents. I understand these features but I don’t use them. I’d be interested in hearing why might people prefer to nest documents in another document rather than a folder, or put manuscript text on a folder object rather than a document inside the folder.
This thread started when the OP accidentally turned off Scrivenings mode, hid all their text and thought they had lost their work. What’s the benefit of being able to do this?
Among other things, the Compile feature handles files and folders differently. So a document nested under another document can be formatted differently from a document nested under a folder, giving the user more control over the ultimate output.
From an organizational standpoint, a user might want to reserve folders for structures that will appear in the finished document – such as chapters – while using nested documents for divisions they use during the writing process – such as components of scenes. In my own work, I often split documents into relatively small chunks to facilitate editing (moving a document in the Binder, rather than using cut/paste), and I tend to nest those chunks underneath the original document.
Text written on a folder object can serve any number of purposes, from an extended synopsis or notes section for the author’s own use, to an introduction, abstract, or epigram for the main text. Again, the Compile function can handle folders differently, so this text could be formatted differently or excluded from the output document completely.
I’m sorry for the distress that the OP endured, but remember that their work was not actually lost. Having read our support queue for a while, I can tell you that excluding every feature of Scrivener that sometimes confuses some users would lead to a very limited program indeed.
Katherine
OK thanks for the explanation - I see that the compiling the folder text differently from document text may be useful some day.