I’m trying to determine if there is a way to change the box border color of a comment in the inspector when it is in the active state, and if so, what the path is. Alternatively, is there a way to change the background color of the comment in the inspector when it’s in the active state?
When clicking on a comment linked to selected text, and thereby changing it to the active state, the Comments & Footnotes panel of the Inspector slightly changes the color of the surrounding box (see the arrows):
My challenge is that the change when in the active state is so slight that it’s hard to locate it against a great many adjacent comments.
Before I delve deeper into modifying my custom theme using the Qt stylesheet, I want to confirm that the dynamic state of a comment being highlighted (due to selecting the corresponding anchor in the editor) is not mapped to a unique QSS selector. I worry that it’s handled internally by Scrivener’s code, rather than by a QSS-exposed class. If I am correct, then it might be futile to try to develop some CSS code for the QSS file that would allow me to change the color of the box’s border when the comment is in the highlighted state.
If anyone knows it would be Antoni Dol. Message him directly. I get around it by using different colors, too hard to see otherwise or locate especially if similar color comments are in close proximity in the text.
Sure, it would be great to be able to control the box lines around comments. There’s room for improvement here, to be sure.
That said, Scrivener’s customization features are wonderfully robust, provided we are willing to dive into the Qt style sheet. Not everyone has the time or ability to do that, though. Perhaps in a future update, more of this customization potential can be surfaced for less-technical users.
How interesting! So, it would be a separate app that would write to the Scrivener Qt style sheet, then?
Are you thinking of building it in Qt so that it’s cross-platform? Hmm. The Windows version implements customization differently than the other versions, so it would have to be smart enough to work with both approaches, right?
No, the. Pal-file is just plan text, but the UI should make it easy to choose colors, and create coherent color palette. I tried using Qt6, but that didn’t work…
Ah, yes–the .pal file, where the theme’s RGB elements are set. I’d forgotten about that.
Such an app could, additionally, write CSS to the QSS file, for even more customization.
I suppose it could write to the .prefs and .xml files, too.
It could then package the four theme files into a .scrtheme (zipped) file and save it to the directory at C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Local\LiteratureAndLatte\Scrivener\Themes folder (in the case of Windows).
The user would then select the new theme inside Scrivener.
I haven’t written code in many years, but I’m sure that with AI help, it’s something that could be done even with minimal coding skills.
I’ve never tried writing with Qt, and I’ve never coded in C++. What was the stumbling block for you?
Understood. I’m sure you would have eventually succeeded, but we have to choose where to spend our time, and it seems you’ve avoided a significant drain on your time. I don’t blame you. (I have to keep reminding myself to focus on my writing.)
