I’m pretty sure this has been brought up before, but I can’t seem to remember or find the answer…
Is there any way to change a custom metadata field on several documents simultaneously?
I know you can do Label and Status by selecting and right-clicking, but the custom fields aren’t on the context menu.
I need to assign some relationships for Aeon Timeline sync, and doing them individually isn’t going to be practical, we’re talking 100’s and ultimately 1000’s of documents. I see I can do them multiply on the Aeon side after syncing, but it would really work out better for me if I could do them in Scriv.
There’s not a way to change the custom meta-data for multiple documents simultaneously, no. I’ve done a pretty quick run of it though by loading all the ones I want to change in the outliner with the custom meta-data column visible, then just using Ctrl+V and tab to paste the data down the list.
If that can be done on the Mac then I shall wait patiently for it make its way to Windows (or for Apple to get off their butts and release an updated Mini…)
Otherwise, maybe something to consider for the wish list.
Meanwhile, I just had an idea for a workflow adjustment which should obviate the need to adjust the custom metadata on multiple files concurrently - that’s if inline annotations (or possibly footnotes) survive being compiled, a small trip through Word, and then Import & Split. I assume they do, but I’ve never tried…
Have you really made a sync of that many documents work with the Windows version of AT?
I have 1.700 documents and AT stalls for more than an hour when attempting to sync.
I reported that on AT’s forum and it seems to be something they have to fix.
The Mac version does not have this issue, but I’ve found more convenient to sync only chapters and scenes, and ignored all subdocuments inside them. That helps when maintaining the relationships current when adding more subdocuments.
Yeah, I’ve experienced the same hang up in AT. I’ve synched up to ~700 documents with it, but for large amounts it stalls for longer than my patience allows - it may eventually complete, but I’ve never sat there long enough to time it.
Just because of the way syncing works it’s not really the best solution for me anyway - my scriv projects have multiple discrete parts that need to stay together in Scriv, but yet need to be synced to separate timelines.
So my work around so far has been to copy the project, delete everything except the particular part that I want to sync and then sync that. But that’s less than ideal.
What I’m going to attempt for the next project is just arrange my screen with Scriv on one side, AT on the other, and use AutoHotkey to make new events and copy times and other information over while I work in Scrivener. I’m already doing something similar to get the times into scrivener in the first place, so a few more pastes here and there piled on ought to work, and will save me a step or two down the road.
At least that’s the theory anyway, I’ll find out next week whether it’ll actually work.
Did not work. At all. Maybe if I had a (much) faster computer, but as it was the script was trying to send commands to windows that weren’t yet fully active. For instance in attempting to paste {ctrl} would fire before the window was ready and I’d end up with just a “v”.
I never even got as far as using that method to make a timeline - I was just round tripping my captured times through excel to shave off .5 second to compensate for my reaction time, and then paste back into Scriv.
I could add pauses to slow down the script to give the windows time to become fully active. But by the time I did that enough, the whole thing was running too slow to keep up with the real time events I was trying to capture.
The final straw was both Excel and LibreOffice Calc started throwing “could not empty the clipboard” errors whenever I tried to paste. ARGH.
Time for Plan B. I’ll just work in Scriv, with AutohotKey to copy and paste some info about there (which it doesn’t seem to have a problem with). And then export the outliner as a CSV, then a bit of Excel magic and I can hopefully import the whole mess into Aeon Timeline that way…
Completely wrong forum to post this on (should be on mine over at scribblecode.com), but since I am hear browsing this one now…
Would it be at all possible for you to send me your scrivx file for me to test with?
I would like to test out the syncing on a really large Scriv project and identify the source of the bottlenecks, and it seems better to use it on real-world data rather than a project I create, just to be sure.
The syncing only looks at the scrivx file itself anyway, it doesn’t need the actual documents, so I don’t need the entire project, just the ScrivX file that describes the binder contents. In terms of confidentiality, the most you would be revealing to me would be your file names in the binder and any custom meta data you have set. Obviously, it wouldn’t be shared any further also… but I understand if you are unable to do so.
