As I’m customizing the interface for Scrivener 3 for Windows, I’m encountering a few bugs. Nothing is stopping from using the system, but they are annoying.
We are given the ability to change the icon sizes on the Main Toolbar. (Thank you for this.) However, if I increase the size of the icons, then the selector between “Scrivenlings/Corkboard/Outline” mode becomes squished and the icons are no longer visible. This does restrict the size of the icons as a consequence.
In dark mode, the binder seems to not have a solid background color and looks chunky
When operating in light mode, but with a custom background color for the binder, if you chose a dark background, the text automatically changes to white text (which is great!). However, that’s not the problem. The problem is that when you add a new file/folder, or go to edit the name of a current one, from within the binder, you get a white background text box with white text. It’s a bit hard to see what I’m typing.
Copyholder behavior is odd and unpredictable. If I open a file in a “copyholder”, most of the time, it takes up the full space of the editor section, with no ability to change it so I can see the other file that was already open in the editor. Occasionally, I can get it to open within part of the editor window, but with no ability to move it to where would be ideal for me.
(Within the promo material for Scrivener 3, there were advertisement of being able to have multiple view layouts, including a three file-window configuration. I’m assuming that this is what the copyholder feature is for, but it is not reliable or configurable, so I can see all files. I must be using it wrong.)
No doubt, other display bugs will crop up as I continue to use the system. As you can imagine, none of these bugs are hindering operations, but they are irritating.
Thank you for the reports. The first three are all on the list for the developers to take a look at, but I’m not quite sure what you’re seeing with the copyholder behaviour or how to reproduce it. Listing the steps you’re taking with their results vs. the expected results and screenshots demonstrating the outcome would be helpful. For instance, you should be able to get a three-pane setup like this:
Starting with a single editor, use View > Editor Layout > Split Vertically to create the regular split view. You can use the toggle button in the right of the editor header for this as well, holding the Alt key to change the direction of the split.
Drag and drop a document from the binder onto the right editor’s header to open it.
Press the Alt key and hold it while dragging a third document from the binder and dropping onto the right editor’s header bar. (Don’t release Alt until you’ve dropped the document.) This should open the dropped document in a copyholder within the right editor; you’ll see a shorter header bar with that document’s title below the main editor header bar.
If you prefer the copyholder on the bottom, and the main editor content on the top, right-click in the copyholder header and choose to show the copyholder on the “Bottom”.
You can use the mouse to drag the divider up or down to adjust the relative heights of the copyholder and main editor.
That should get you a setup akin to this:
[attachment=0]3pane.png[/attachment]
Once the copyholder is open, you can drag and drop documents directly onto its header bar to load them. You can also use the context menu or Navigate menu’s Open > in Copyholder to open a selected document in the focussed editor’s copyholder (whether the copyholder is already open or not).
The ALT key drag method doesn’t work as you have hinted at. It certainly doesn’t open a file in “copyholder” mode. The only thing it’s doing is adding the text to the already existing file there. Not in “copyholder” mode.
If I have a “locked file” in the editor, then I can open a document in “copyholder” but the copyholder takes up the entire editor, rendering the feature useless. (See attached image) [attachment=0]Capture.PNG[/attachment]
The pane on the right-hand side should be showing two files, not two file titlebars and only one file. (The file showing is the one titled “Human Nature”, The “Editorial Synopsis” is the locked file, so locked files doesn’t explain this behavior either.)
I’ve tried numerous times to get the copyholder feature to work, and I come up with the same result every time.
Through stubborn perseverance, I have managed to store my issue with the copyholder taking up the full editor, but the ALT key functionality that you mentioned above certainly does NOT work the way you suggest. All it does is copy the text from the one file into the active file.
Thank you for the image; that’s helpful to see what is going on. You should be able to position the cursor at the bottom of the right editor and see it change to a split divider which you can then click and drag up to reduce the height of the copyholder, revealing the main editor.
In a new project (or one that has not previously had the copyholders opened), copyholders should be opening by default at only half the size of the editor, so that you’re seeing it this way initially, with the copyholder sized so large, is unusual and hopefully will not be something you regularly need to contend with.
Regarding the Alt-drag, there are several different behaviours depending on where you drop and whether you hold the Alt key (in all these cases, holding the Alt key means pressing it before first clicking on the item in the binder and keeping it held until the item is dropped):
With the Alt key held, dragging and dropping a document from the binder into the text editor will insert the document’s contents, as you describe.
The same action without the Alt key held will drop an internal link to the document, using its title (or, if dropped on already selected text, will attach the link to that text).
With the Alt key held, dragging and dropping a document from the binder onto the editor header bar will open the document in a copyholder.
Without the Alt key held, dragging and dropping from the binder onto the editor header bar will open the document in that editor.
Dragging and dropping a document from the binder (with or without the Alt key held) onto the copyholder header will open the document in the copyholder (if it is a supported type, e.g. text document, image, or PDF).
This is the program design, so if your’e seeing something different, there may be something else at play–do you have other software installed that might be capturing the Alt key (as a global shortcut or such) or affecting mouse behaviour? What version of Windows are you running?
Meanwhile, even if the drag and drop is not working for you, the context menu or Navigate > Open menus will allow you to still make use of the copyholders.
Okay… That totally explains what I was doing wrong. The Copyholder feature is working as you had designed, but I clearly had no idea how to use it. Thank you for the clarifications. I am making a note of these, so I can ensure that other don’t fall into the same issues that I had.
I’m still looking forward to the other three GUI display issues to be resolved.