I’ve made my Scrivener project look pretty buy changing colours, formats, etc. However this has resulted in all my projects looking the same. Not really a problem from the perspective that I generally write one book at a time. However, I have established two separate projects that are very similar but one is for reference only and the other is ‘lean’ (without pictures and moodboards and such) because I also write on the go with my iOS version of Scrivener.
The difficulty is that when on the computer I have both the ‘reference’ project and the 'writing project going at the same time. Because they look the same, it is easy to forget which one has focus and I can end up editing the wrong one. The simple solution is to modify a colour, such as that of the binder, which I always have displayed. This is proving tricky, because changing the binder colour in one project also changes it in the other. Is there some wizardry involved to change just one particular project’s appearance?
I’d be much obliged by any sage advice.
Many thanks,
Jeremy W
As I understand it, everything in the Settings/Options dialogue is shared across all projects on a specific device (i.e. you can set different global settings on different devices, but not different global settings for projects on the same device).
That means that you need to concentrate on individual project settings: the ones you find in Project > Project Settings.
You could experiment with:
-
Different text styles for each project: e.g. varying the base text colour (blue for one project, black for another), either in
Project Settings > Formatting, remembering to set “Use different formatting for new documents in this project”, or by varying the colour of Heading styles in the Style panel etc. -
Different label colours
-
Changing the composition mode background image.
None of these do exactly what you’re asking for, but they are visual clues which may help.
Hi Brookter,
I really appreciate the response. I’d forgotten about the Project menu option. Unfortunately I don’t think anything I can do there will make an obvious ‘at-a-glance’ difference between the look and feel of each project. But thanks for letting me know that my use-case just isn’t supported.
Cheers,
Jeremy W
This is just a “would this be possible/work?” thought…
Could one use Better Touch Tool/ Keyboard Maestro/Alfred/… to create a Macro which would act as a toggle to minimise one of the projects. So while working on Writing Project, Reasearch Project would be minimised; a press of the shortcut would minimise Writing Project and expand Research Project; another press of the shortcut would take you back again.
I only have BTT and have only minimal understanding of it, haven’t got my head round it at all, so I don’t know.
Mark
Hi Xiamenese,
I’ve had a little play with Keybaord Maestro in the past, so I know what you’re suggesting. Quite the handy toolkit, that one!
However, I am a bit of a clutz when I’m ‘in-focus’, churning out the words. I know myself, that remembering to perform a keystroke each time I switch projects is just another thing I’ll need to remember to do while I’m thinking about plot, character and all the other stuff one does while focused on writing. Sounds ridiculous, I know. The safest would be to have two laptops open at the same time, each with a different project … seems a little like the tail wagging the dog, though. I guess I’ll just have to be more vigilant in checking the title bar of each Scrivener window before committing an edit.
Thanks for the suggestion though. I’ll dust off my copy of KM and see what opimisations I can come up with.
Cheers,
Jeremy W
A couple of ways to remind you of where you are…
- One project has the document titles all in capitals
- Rename the top folder for one from Draft to Reference etc.
- Label the folders in one with a unique colour and set it to fill the entire line…
AIUI you’re just trying to trick yourself into noticing where you’re typing, so perhaps a combination of this sort of trigger may stick?
There is another method: put both projects into (Apple) “Full Screen”. Moving between them is easy (on my setup it’s two-finger swipe on a mouse or three-finger swipe on a trackpad), and the cursor is active in whichever screen is open.
I also set different default formatting for some projects (anything Markdown > Typst, etc. is monospaced; RTF projects are in a font like Palatino, Libertinus Serif… makes it clearer.
Mark
Great suggestions, Brookter! I’ll do that.
Many thanks 
Jeremy W
Thank you, Mark! Another great suggestion. Will-do.
Cheers,
Jeremy W
You can have different label colors between projects, you have a different font and even text color. Research could be red, making it easy to separate projects. You could also have unique icons and change name of manuscript as well.
Thanks GoalieDad,
For now, I’ve adopted label colours and upper case document and folder names in the Binder as a solution, and it works a treat!
Cheers,
Jeremy W
Excellent - I’m glad you found it helpful as a workaround!
Thanks again, Brookter. The suggestion of using labels has made all the difference!