It’s a stupid little thing, but I’m puzzled by a recent change in Binder Integration behaviour — and I can’t work out what I’ve done to cause it! As it happens, the change is a huge IMPROVEMENT for me: fixed an annoying glitch that’s bugged me for years. But I’d really like to know what I did. Now I know the problem is fixable, I want to know how to repeat the fix in future!
ETA: turns out it wasn’t a settings issue, but a difference in my own sequence of mouse actions. See my next post below!
The issue is to do with dragging from the Binder to the Editor: until recently, I couldn’t seem to drag a file from the Binder without automatically selecting it. Anytime I tried dragging to the Editor (eg to insert a link), the Editor would annoyingly switch to displaying the file I was dragging (defeating the purpose!). This made creating links by dragging very tedious: I’d have to either lock the Editor first (or set Binder to Open in Other Editor), or else let the Editor change, use the back navigation arrow to restore the original doc and then re-drag (once the ‘link’ doc had been highlighted in the Binder, clicking on it had no effect on the Editor). Weirdly, it would often wait until I’d dragged halfway across the screen before changing, almost as if to taunt me!
Suddenly the problem has vanished. If I click on an item in the binder without releasing the mouse (ie if I start dragging it), the item does NOT highlight and the Editor stays put. (Ordinary clicking does highlight it and the Editor duly updates to display the selected doc). In other words, it’s now possible to drag a Binder item without selecting it.
Any ideas what I did to bring this blessed change about? I’m using Scrivener (v.2.7)
Hmmm, looks like this is not an issue currently troubling anyone else : ) But on the off chance someone in future has the same puzzle, going to post my own answer here. I suspect my initial question was slightly mal posé; doesn’t seem to be anything to do with settings. But I have solved my problem!! Reframing my question and solution …
Q: How do you drag an item from the Binder into the Editor without the Editor automatically switching to that new item as you drag? (That is, assuming the Editor window in question is the one currently set up for the Binder to affect; if not, there’s obviously no problem).
A: Change focus to the Binder before starting to drag. When the focus is already on the Binder, only clicks affect what the Editor displays; dragging does not.
This is usually only a problem if the item is already selected in the binder, too. Clicking to drag automatically gives the binder focus, and if you also clicked on the currently-selected item, that will cause it to be opened in the editor if it is not currently. (This is actually some behaviour I have improved in 3.0, although it was tricky to work around as it’s all default macOS stuff.)
Ha! Interesting… That explains the variable behaviour I was getting before — must have depended on whether the dragged doc was already selected or not! Happily (if mysteriously to those of us pig-ignorant of whatever is going on beneath the hood of OSX), manually switching focus to the Binder first (a quick keystroke) seems to stop this pesky behaviour in its tracks.
But I really should upgrade to 3.0 — keep putting it off b/c currently mid-project and cautious about the inevitable personal workflow teething issues…
Thank you so much for clarifying. It’s just amazing to me that you guys can find the time to explain these mysteries to your users. Yet another way that Scrivener is made of awesome!
3.0 definitely has a bit of a relearning curve, mainly in the way Compile works, so I would recommend updating only when you’ve finished your current project and have a couple of hours to spend learning some of the new concepts. At that point I recommend firing up the 3.0 tutorial and looking at the “What’s New in Scrivener 3” Collection and then going through the transition guide project here:
If you focus on getting the hang of how Section Types and Section Layouts work in 3.0, everything else should be just like falling in with an old friend who has a new haircut.
