Document deadlines & countdown timers

Scrivener Wish List
1

I love the Target tools which gives me a visual way of tracking my progress to a word target in relationship to a set project deadline. My request is for some additional document-level deadline tracking tools. Big projects often have parts with their own deadlines, some imposed from without (e.g. by a publisher), some from within (e.g. my own goals). For instance, I might need to get a series of related articles to my editor once a month, or I might want to set target deadlines for myself for each chapter of my book. I’d like to be able to set these at any given document level in my binder structure, depending on my organization, in the same way that Scrivener now helpfully lets me set word count targets not only for the project as a whole, but for any portion thereof.

After I have set a date deadline for a document, I’d like a countdown timer of some sort (days and, optionally, hours) to be available that shows how much time I have left before that deadline, or how far overdue I am past the deadline. It would be neat if the countdown timer changes color as the deadline approaches or is missed (e.g. a cool blue for a distant deadline that gets progressively darker and then maybe turns orange when in the home stretch, and then red if a deadline is missed. This would be a visual cue similar to the very nice color changes Scrivener currently has for the word count progress bars.) Once a document is given “Done” status, then the countdown stops and the completed date is displayed.

I’d like to have this information displayable in various places:

  • In the General pane of the Notes tab, as an option for the field that can display the date the document was “Created” or “Modified”. (i.e. add “Deadline” as a third option, which perhaps changes to “Completed” once Done status is achieved.)
  • As an option in the Targets popup window. E.g. Below the project and session bars, display the deadline and countdown timer for the currently selected document.
  • As optional columns in the outliner, just as document targets currently may be displayed. This would be the most useful feature, and was what prompted my idea. I regularly track my word target progress for different sections of a big project this way, and would love to be able to simultaneously see a column where I could set and see any deadlines I have set, and another column with a countdown timer. This would be very helpful for keeping a big project on track.

Thanks for considering this!

2

I’m not sure that this will give you everything you’ve asked for but Scrivener 3 will give you at least some of it.
See the latest blog entry: literatureandlatte.com/blog/?p=1136

3

It was that blog post that stimulated me to write this up, as I didn’t see these features mentioned. But perhaps there is more along these lines in S3 than was listed there. In any case, I’ll be buying it the moment it appears!

4

Your wish list was well-written. :slight_smile:
My reading comprehension skill at the time - not so good. :blush: Sorry for cluttering your thread.