Would it be possible to add a function to DOUBLE or TRIPLE SPACE after a FULL STOP with short key function like Remove Multiple Spaces with Single Spaces as maybe Add Double Spaces After Punctuation??
I don’t wish to open up the debate about how many spaces are needed after full stops, Manuscripts are personal workspaces intended to help the author cobble together his/her story, Being able to space out my sentences on screen greatly helps me separate my sentential arguments in a paragraph at an eye glance—doubly important in this age of laptops where screens are smaller.
Honestly, the ability to double or triple space after punctuation marks would be such a great help.
As far as I can tell, throughout the years Scrivener has been actively offering solutions in giving writers choice in how they organise their material. Giving us the choice between one, two, or three spaces after punctuation marks, I think, goes to the heart of what Scrivener does best—empower the writer.
Throughout the years I have asked for this function to be incorporated. I would be so incredibly chuffed if it did.
Just set that up as you want in System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Replace and add an entry to replace a full stop with a full stop and two or three spaces.
I can set fullstop-space to be replaced by fullstop-space-space (as many spaces as you want!), but the issue is it is system-wide, not Scrivener specific.
It looks like Mac Scriv is inferior to Windows Scriv in this matter: all substitutions that aren’t smart quotes, smart dashes and smart ellipses (outside Compile) are handled through the MacOS System Prefs.
You could create a replacement that you only use in Scrivener, such as replacing ./ or … with a full stop and three spaces (the “With” field allows spaces). That would leave you free to use other punctuation models in other programs.
Don’t know if L&L would program such a niche request as yours, but always worth asking.
This, among hundreds of other reasons, is why I use a third-party tool for replacements instead of the global system tool. What these often provide is a way to create replacements that only function in a set number of applications. I can have stuff that only triggers in my email client for example, and other replacements that work in everything but email. Once you learn a bit about how to use it, you start thinking of all kinds of ways to save time with them. I’ve got hundreds of them, from common URLs that I type in all of the time, date stamps, even whole chunks of text and boilerplate forms to fill out.
I have been using Typinator for going on ten years now. It has a lot of power to it if you need it, but can be used rather simply as well. TypeIt4Me is the original by the way—I don’t know if it supports per-program snippets though. Another up and coming alternative is aText. It’s a lot cheaper than the alternatives (5 USD), and from what I can see it offers most of what most people would want. You may not be able to add programmable forms that you fill out and be able to run scripts that download the weather and insert it into your editor—but make it so “. ” becomes “. ” in only Scrivener, and only while writing in English? That it can do.
Not that this is a replacement for what you want, but are you aware of the View->Text Editing->Focus menu? You can set it to fade out everything but the sentence where your cursor is currently placed.
