Hi Keith,
I would love to see a more automated way to manage meta-data (labels, statuses, custom meta-data) across multiple projects.
I realise this has been partially touched on here: https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/the-ultimate-documentary-paper-edit-app/13670/1
…although it was as part of a much bigger request. Also the solution offered there does not address the usage scenario I face.
I have applied the technique of taking a project to its completing (at least in terms of Scrivener set-up) and then saving that (with all it’s content stripped out) as a template. I then base future (non-fiction books, in my case) project on this template. This is pretty much what the above mentioned thread suggests too.
Over time, however, I find I want to tweak my work-flow, which usually results in tweaking my meta-data configuration (as this is what I use to manage my work-flow). Once I tweak my meta-data I want to be able to make those changes to all projects I am working on (7 books at the moment). I have not found a quick way to make changes to the meta-data on multiple projects. I’ve tried updating my template and then creating a new project and copying the content of an existing project to there, but then the meta-data currently applied to each “file” is lost. Status and Label revert to “No Status” and “No Label”. What’s more, it’s still a lot of fiddling around.
Here’s my wish:
I see a couple of ways of doing this, the later better then that prior.
- Simplest: Provide a button on the meta-data set-up panel to export/import meta-data. Provide an opinion with this to “Clear existing Labels and Statuses on import”, and whether or not to keep those Statuses and Labels currently in use (i.e. those that are applied to documents in the project).
This would save me a lot of time and work keeping the Labels and Statuses uniform across all my projects.
- More complex, but more automated:
Provide a way to not just use a template for a new project, but to link a new (or existing) project to a template. Now any changes made to the project specific configuration of the template (meta-data, and keywords are the ones that come to mind) would be synchronised into the projects linked to it.
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There could be an option for this to be applied automatically each time the “child” project is opened. Scrivener would check the “parent” or template that is linked to. AND/OR there could be an option to only update/synchronise when the use clicks a button to do so.
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There could also be an option to synchronise back the other way, from “child” to “parent”. This would be handy because if I make changes to my Labels / Statuses / Keywords I am going to make them in a project I am working on, rather than to the master template. Being able to sync those changes back to the master template, and then from there sync them to each child using that master or parent template would be super cool. I can’t tell you how much time it would save me as an author of numerous books.
This is somewhat along the lines of how individual documents of “Books” are managed when I move my work into InDesign. When working in “Book” mode, I can have all the styles, etc., linked from the master document. If I change the (paragraph and character) styles on the master, then all linked files will be updated. This saves a lot of work.
With thanks,
Jonathan