Drag to create Scrivener Link

Hello!
I have all my research titled in my citation format (with the exception of styles like italics, which I can’t seem to do in in the title of document) and when I want to cite to something, I create a scrivener link with the title of the document. It’s very handy quickly citing in the proper form and then I can reference back quickly! I thought I read in the manual that I could do this by holding option when I drag something from the binder, but when I do that sometimes it opens up the document I’m dragging in the window I’m dragging to, and sometimes it just inserts the link like I want it to. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks!!

Make sure that you don’t press the Option key until after you’ve clicked on the document in the binder. The order is

  1. Mouse-down on the binder document
  2. Press and hold Option
  3. Drag to the editor
  4. Mouse-up (drop)
  5. Release Option key

You can do 2 and 3 in either order; the key point for the problem you’re getting is that you need to not click Option until after you’ve moused-down on the document.

Thanks! That was a little counter-intuitive for me I suppose, but you guessed my problem right. Thank you for your help!

The problem is that this is a feature of dragging in OS X in general. For instance, try having two overlapping windows in the Finder and drag a file from the back window to the front one. Then try doing the same but hold down the Option key. In the first case, the background window remains in the background; in the latter case, it is brought to the fore. Across OS X, Opt-dragging gives the focus to the source, and in Scrivener that means that the document switches.

All the best,
Keith