I’m a screenwriter currently on a test drive of Scrivener. Although I’m liking it very much, I’m hung up on one little thing regarding keyboard shortcuts.
I’m using the ‘screenplay’ template and when I create a ‘scene’ and begin typing, the keyboard shortcuts to get to dialog, character, slug line, etc. don’t seem to work. I see the ‘scene heading’ box in the lower right, and can click on the options to manually change something to dialog or character or whatever, but I’d like to write the way I do in Final Draft, if possible. (I’ve used FD for a long time and would prefer to use my established muscle memory.)
As you probably know, in FD if I’m typing a slugline and hit ‘return’, it shifts to action (as it does in Scrivener). However, if I hit the command key, I have choices for command+1 (scene heading), command+2 (action), command+3 (dialog), etc.
Is there a way to set this up in Scrivener? I don’t plan to write an entire screenplay in Scrivener, but it’d be nice to be able to write scenes or dialog as inspiration hits.
Hope this makes sense. I’m sorry if this is covered elsewhere in the forum. I did several searches and didn’t find anything on this topic.
In Scrivener, the same keyboard shortcuts are available, but they are Option-Cmd-1-9. The shortcuts in the box at the bottom only work while the menu is open. You can also hit return twice to bring up a list of elements.
Thanks so much for your speedy response. I was able to get both suggested shortcut methods to work. As a suggestion for a future release, you may consider allowing the end user to create keyboard shortcuts that are identical to Final Draft.
The reason is that it’s a lot slower to have to click on the box at the bottom to get the shortcuts to come up, while in the middle of typing. It’s also more difficult to hit option+command+1,2,3 (etc) vs. command+1,2,3. I use Final Cut Pro a lot too and I don’t mind those kinds of tricky shortcuts with that application because I’m not generally typing while using it; I’m using the mouse.
Also, the order is backwards from Final Draft. For example, in Final Draft, I type a sentence and then hit command+5 for dialog for the next line. In Scrivener, the keyboard shortcut changes the line I just wrote. Another nice feature in FD is that when I hit the command key, a ‘cheat sheet’ list of shortcuts appears at the bottom of the screen. So, it’s easy to find those that I don’t use often. And this is done without having to use the mouse.
I realize there are many who’ll say “just write in FD, dude…” but it’d be really nice to have parity between the apps for these particular keyboard shortcuts so shifting back-and-forth between them is effortless and I can just think about writing and not “D’oh, what key… oh, yeah…”
Thanks a bunch, this is a great app and I can’t wait to start using it on my next project!