When I click on a folder in the Binder while in Corkboard mode, the Inspector pane displays information from a random file (e.g., the random file’s name, synopsis, etc.). The only way I can see a folder’s Inspector info is in Scrivenings mode. How do I view a folder’s Inspector info in Corkboard mode?
The Corkboard and Outline views only display the contents of a folder, i.e. anything nestled within the folder. When you first select a folder, the Inspector should either reflect information for the first item in the folder or the Project Bookmarks depending on where your cursor was last active. If you want to view any data connected to the actual folder itself, you’ll need to exit those views.
If you find yourself wanting to view data regularly in Corkboard view that’s currently tied to the folder itself, you might want to move that data to a document within the folder instead.
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Thanks, Jen! It’s weird–I created the Inspector info for the folders in Corkboard (the only view I’d ever used until I tried to figure out why I couldn’t get back to the folder Inspector info) and now when I return to Corkboard from Scrivenings, the folder Inspector info is there until I click on an item in the folder, and then I cannot return to the folder Inspector info without exiting Corkboard. But I guess any ability to see folder information in Corkboard is just a lucky bug. Great idea to create a document within the folder for the data I want to access about that folder!
You can have two Corkboards at once. So you might use one for the folder you’re working with, and then the other for the next outline level up. (So one for the Draft folder, say, and one for a specific chapter.) The Inspector will switch back and forth between whichever pane of the Editor is currently active.
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Also refer to the documentation on how the inspector works. In the introduction to the basics of the user interface, in §4.1.5, The Inspector, it has this to say:
Its purpose is to display all metadata and auxiliary information associated with the document shown in the active editor pane, or if the editor is showing a group view, the selected item within that pane.
(Emphasis added.)
In §4.1.2, under subheading Left to Right Navigation, this is also described in the larger perspective of how information flows from the binder to the editor to the inspector. As noted in the fifth bullet, you seem to be expecting information to skip over the editor, ignoring how it works entirely, and only inspect what you select the leftmost part of the window.
… the folder Inspector info is there until I click on an item in the folder, and then I cannot return to the folder Inspector info without exiting Corkboard.
So given the above descriptions, it has less to do with that, but you were on the right track when observing how it changes when you select something in the corkboard. The missing ingredient is that the opposite is also true, if you don’t select anything, then you inspect the container (folder, if you will), or what we are viewing as a corkboard with things on it.
Or as noted in the yellow tip box, titled When I click on a folder something else gets inspected?, in §13.1, Inspecting Items, simply click in between cards to deselect anything and inspect the group that is represented by the corkboard as a whole.
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