Dragging Binder into Scapple-- Titles Only?

Scapple Scapple for macOS
1

Hello all!

Apologies if this is an obvious and easily answered question. I did try doing some searches, and turned up nothing. I am starting a new project in Scrivener 3, and selected all the documents in my binder and dragged them into Scapple so I could so some structuring. I was surprised to see that each ENTIRE document showed up in Scapple-- title and text. Not helpful to me at all, as I typically use Scapple to get a bird’s eye view of the project!

My memory is that I used to be able to drag the binder into Scapple and the only thing that showed up was titles. Am I wrong about this? (Perhaps in those older projects I hadn’t yet crudded up the document with bits of scenes, etc…) Is there a setting that I’m missing?

Assuming that this has always been the behavior, is there any easy workflow that would allow me to export document titles only and then drag them into Scapple, splitting the titles into separate notes?

Thanks in advance.

2

Because I’m on a deadline, and I’m desperate, I just downloaded Scrivener 2 from the App Store, and opened an old project, where I confirmed, to my dismay, that the binder drags EXACTLY as I had hoped-- titles only, instant access in Scapple. And yet there appears to be no way to do this with Scrivener 3.

!!! Ack, egads, and what??? Please say it’s not so!!!

I badly need, and always use, Scapple in the outlining phases of my project, both at the beginning, and later, as the project develops. When I outline, I don’t WANT to be distracted by dialogue and descriptions. I just need top level titles to figure out the map of the story, and play without distractions. The old Scrivener 2 to Scapple flow worked perfectly for this.

In the current Scrivener 3 system, I can drag and drop my binder, and then I would have to go through, scene by scene, and delete all of the text, leaving only titles, if I wanted to get that bird’s eye view. But I have hundreds of scenes! So now, to gather my thoughts, as I have been doing for the past several years, I will need to export my new Scrivener 3 project to a Scrivener 2 project, so that I can drag and drop it into Scapple. This is cumbersome, to say the least-- albeit not nearly as cumbersome as the many methods (opml export, mind mapping software) that I have been futzing with all afternoon.

At the risk of appearing melodramatic, let me fall to my knees and plead my case: please add some kind of tic-box in Scrivener 3 or in Scapple that allows users to say “titles only” when exporting from Scrivener to Scapple.

In every way the Scrivener 3 upgrade has been a delight. This is making me so sad. :frowning:

3

I see your problem, if all you want to drag into Scapple are the titles. But, are you sure that “each ENTIRE document” show up in Scapple. If I drag a longish document — without any Synopsis — from the Scrivener Binder into Scapple, the title and the first five or six lines show up in Scapple. If the document has a synopsis, the title and the synopsis show up. So, as I understand it, the latter is the default, and i.e. if there isn’t any synopsis, one is “created” on dragging. Of course, if titles are all you want, this could be irritating enough.

I know that this answer doesn’t solve your problem, but as an avid Scapple user I couldn’t help getting curious. Perhaps KB could consider introducing a modifier, e.g. Opt-Drag, to facilitate Titles Only …

4

You are correct! In my dismay, I failed to observe the details. What you describe mimics behavior that I’m seeing in Scrivener 3, generally-- if my index cards don’t have a synopsis, the first several lines of the scene show up on the index card, and if my document doesn’t have a title, the first line of text shows up in the binder. Interestingly, I don’t love this behavior in Scrivener 3-- I’m easily distracted when writing, and don’t write synopses on purpose, in order to prevent clutter on the screen. But in Scrivener it’s not worth fussing about. In Scapple, it’s terrible-- as if all my kids showed up at my desk with their portable speakers to entertain me while I write. :wink:

5

You may want to post this over in Mac Scrivener Technical Support. It’s Scrivener’s behaviour that’s changed, because this will depend entirely on what Scrivener loads up for the drag/drop.

I tested it, BTW, on my own project and you are so absolutely right.This would definitely be a bummer to anyone who depended on Scrivener’s old behaviour with Scapple.

6

Workaround! Put one single space into the synopsis on the Scrivener side, and what you get on the Scapple side is a title plus one line with a space in. It’s a crude solution, but it might get you up and running for now…,

1 Like
7

Thank you for that idea. It would let me delete Scrivener 2 from my computer again, and would also take care of my “cluttered” index cards. I’ll give it a shot.

Since I’ve already posted here, I’m concerned about cluttering up the forums with duplicate posts. At the moment, thanks to you, I now have a second workaround, bringing the total to two, so I’m not hung up, although neither solution is ideal.

I’d love to know the official perspective on the issue. Perhaps I’ll let it sit for a day or two and then try over there.

8

Hi!
I see that this board is monitored, because other posts have gotten replies from the LL crew. I would love to hear an "official"response to the drag and drop problem I described above. Is there any hope of getting the old behavior back? Thank you!

9

said se1961, and let it sit for nearly twenty hours.

10

Your best hope of getting a timely, official answer is to contact Support via email.

11

I am here exploring the forum because I just discovered the same behavior, and it surprised me too! It would be great to have the options to (1) just drag the document title into Scapple, or (2) drag title and synopsis, if the latter contains text, or (3) drag title & synopsis, or lines from the document if the synopsis is empty (i.e., current behavior).

Patiently hoping :slight_smile: