Hi. Somehow, all my documents got the same label, which isn’t going to work. So I’ve created a few new labels and now want to change all the documents in a given folder at once. I select all and go to the change label/status option, but it only changes the first document. Can anyone clue me in on this process? I’m sure it’s very simple. Thanks.
Just select whichever documents you want to change in the binder, outliner or corkboard, then ctrl-click on the selection and select the new label to apply to the whole selection via the contextual menu.
Hope that helps.
All the best,
Keith
Thanks, that worked. Strange that it’s not possible to do this via the normal window in the Inspector, no? In any case, thanks for responding.
Why is that strange? Would you expect that when you type in the index card in the inspector, the synopsis gets changed for all selected documents? Would you expect that typing in the notes pane would delete all of the notes associated with other selected documents and replace them with the one you are currently typing? The answer is, no, you wouldn’t. The current behaviour is consistent. The inspector inspects the meta-data associated with one file. It would be counter-intuitive for some elements in the inspector to operate on multiple documents whilst others did not. Now, that would be “strange”.
Keith
Hi Keith,
While I agree with your implementation in this case for consistency, many inspectors do actually work that way with multiple selections: if all selected items share the same value, that value gets displayed, and otherwise they are left blank; if the user changes any value, they are all set to that value.
In Scrivener it would be a nightmare for anything except label & status, but in many apps that is the preferred and expected behaviour.
Keith,
I’m not a programmer so my perspective is that of end-user only. In iTunes for example, I can select multiple songs then go to the information panel and change the genre of all of them to “jazz” for example, or give them all 4 stars. I was trying to follow the same sequence in Scrivener by selecting all the cards in a given folder, then going to the side panel and changing the label. Seemed intuitive to me, and not much different from the control/click sequence you suggested.
I think the intention is the inspector is not a Global inspector but really an inspector for the current document you are working on.
An example is like in iTunes you can select multiple songs and change their genre all at once but you cannot rename the songs all at once, nor can you play all the songs selected at once.
The binder though is more like a “global” tool as that is where you can apply labels to multiple. The inspector is more like a more detailed look at your current file.
A nightmare scenario. You are viewing two files in split view and you open the inspector and everything you type in the inspector is applied to BOTH files in split view.
I think the confusion comes from the name “inspector” as it is more of a “detailed view” (of that individual file) than it is of what many may think is an “inspector” as most people would assume “inspector” would have global abilities which it does not but the binder does. The binder is where you want to do things to multiple files and the inspector is where you get into more detail on a particular file.
Or at least that is my take on it.
Got you. If I’d just chosen multiple items from the binder list on the left instead of the individual note-cards from the board, it would work. Thanks.
The inspectors you are talking about generally open in a different window. In Scrivener, one alternative would be just to show the project notes/references when there is a multiple selection, which would be more consistent with binder behaviour. That would maybe avoid the confusion at least.
Wock - I don’t agree with your take on the word “inspector”. An inspector just allows you to inspect something. There is no semantic expectation that it should relate to multiple items. In Scrivener, the inspector allows you to inspect the current document. Inspectors are different in every app. Either way, it’s not going to change.
Keith