I’m experimenting with Scrivener to see whether it’s what I want to use. I write non-fiction, so I started with the General Non-Fiction template. In the User Manual, it says there are always three top-line folders within the Binder: in this case, Manuscript, Research, and Trash. The General Non-Fiction template came with two additional top-line folders, Ideas and Notes. I realize that you can call these folders anything you want, and you can use them as you see fit. Still, I’m curious what the concept behind these two additional folders is, given that I would otherwise think of notes and ideas as research.
So as an experiment, click anywhere into the background of the binder so that nothing is selected, and then use the Project ▸ New Folder menu command. Since nothing was selected it will be created at the bottom of the binder, below Trash. Drag it up between Notes and Ideas, hold down the Ctrl and Opt keys, and click on it to access the icon menu (the modifiers are a quick way of bringing that up). Pick something, anything, maybe “Inbox”—and there you go, that’s the beginning and the end of what this particular project template does.
If you want to take the experiment even further, use the File ▸ Save As Template... menu command, call it “Temp”, and then try creating a new project from it. Voilà![1]
The three default root folders you refer to are described as having two special characteristics in the user manual: “The binder has three default root folders which cannot be deleted or moved from the top level.” That does not imply you cannot make your own root level folders (or files), merely that they will never be like that; as ordinary folders you will be able to delete them and nest/indent them amongst one another.
Still, I’m curious what the concept behind these two additional folders is, given that I would otherwise think of notes and ideas as research.
Honestly, it has more to do with giving you an example of what you can do in your own binders, rather than us having some grand idea for how you should use them. Trash them if you don’t need anything like that, and make your own. I do actually like having an Inbox folder at the top of all of my projects (it is in my starter templates!). I find it useful to have a place where things can go in haste, to be developed, filed, or discarded later on, as the case may be.
You can delete it by right-clicking on the “Temp” template after this experiment, but you might want to actually rename it and continue refining and updating it, making this your own instead of this basic example we started you off with. Refer to §5.4.4, Revising Templates, in the user manual for the details. ↩︎