Perhaps Santa Claus will bring us a feature in SCRIVENER (SCR) that I always wanted to use in the last few years, but not had:
SEARCH
The inbuilt Search-Function of SCR ist great. I like it very much and use it very often. Especially the possibility to search global in all documents and then skip immediately into a single chapter search with the same search-topic - flawless. That’s very fast and effective. For non-fiction-writer a splendid way to do research.
But, there is something that nearly every author needs - in fiction and non-fiction text: the fast overview of words in the near vicinity of the actual writing spot.
What does that mean? If discussing a topic in a document with komplex explanations, I always wanted to know, whether I have used a special word shortly. It’s a bit bulky and bad sounding when I apply the same word as I did 4 or 7 lines above the actual line. That’s clumsy. It also sounds clumsy when read out loudly on front of people. - This all happens when I write in a flush, fast and dirty. But after rereading - mostly minutes or hours later - sometimes days - it often turns out that I already used a significant term, a word or sentence. But how often do I have to control such things in the text? To often! Time is honey.
My proposal: an inbuilt search function that controls 10 lines above and 10 lines under the point where the cursor stands at the moment. I double-click on the word I want, and - immediately - this word is underlined or underlayed with nice color in the direct vicinity of a few lines (perhaps chosable). Then I can decide in seconds whether I use the same word again oder change it inside their lines above or below. This is also very useful when you read a long text after a long while.
This is what Santa Claus should have in his sled - as soon as possible. I would pay something for that feature, because it makes my text better and more versatile. Time is honey.
While maybe some common “problem text” searches like this could be useful, do note that it supports regular expressions, which can do all kinds of searches like this and an endless amount of other things to.
Even if you don’t know how to use it, you can copy and paste examples from others that do. If you scroll down a bit in that thread, you will find another useful and more complicated one that will find multiple word use within a certain distance to each other.
Before I dive into the science of RegEx, I just like to know, whether I can use that tool in SCRIV itself. I have no idea what it is all about. But just to make shure that I could learn it from scratch: is there any introduction in the SCRIV manual, that I could read to see whether it fits my technical capabilities. If it’s too complicated, I have to put it aside until my first book is printed and edited.
What time does it need to understand and use RegEx inside SCRIV ? Is it one day, two, or a week? Thanks for an estimation in advance.
And will it be applied and used inside the “Find-Function” (or “Search” tool) in SCRIV, or do I have to use other external apps to make it happen?
that’s by chance exactly the future, that I describe in my actual book-project. That’s the switch to worldwide unemployment: speaking, and something will do the rest. Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick have that already pointed out in their AI film.
Nevertheless I would prefer at the moment, if I could have glimpse into the existing procedure of letting SCRIV check double words in a certain distance to the cursor. I’m not a great fan of KI in the long run, very long run.
I even fear that KI could misunderstand me and do some nonsense with my manuscript that I’m creating since several years. I want to finish the book now, very soon. I don’t want a last minute call from hell. (smiley).
Perhaps there is somebody here in the forum who can give me some dry tips about my questions above. Just to know the difficulties that I’m facing.
It’s a separate mode, in the same places you would switch between, for example “Contains” vs “Begins with”. But yes, it is built in, as an option, to nearly every search function in the software. I think the only main one that does not is Quick Search in the main toolbar.
The documentation for switching this search mode on is in §11.7, Regular Expressions, in the user manual PDF. But to be clear this only explains how to enable it in the various searching tools that support it. Regular expressions themselves are thoroughly documented elsewhere, and there are many good tutorials on the Web, and referenced in this forum, such as in this thread.
But one wouldn’t need to understand too much, or any, to copy and paste example searches others provide, such as the ones I linked to above.
In addition to tutorials, the Web is full of regex users as it is the most popular universal search tool, and you can often stumble across very precise answers that have been asked and answered hundreds of times over on different websites.
I’m not exactly sure what you might be after. The term ‘key words’ is similar to ‘Keywords’ which is a precise Scrivener buzzword that likely is not what you are getting at.
So if I assume you are looking for, instead, ‘key words’, such as when trying to determine overusage of any particular word in a particular document, maybe this is the way to do it:
Go to Menu > Project > Statistics. I can’t give you the keyboard shortcut, bc I’ve changed it on my computer. (Maybe Amber can chime in)
This opens a window where you can choose ‘Selected Documents’. (so select the doc you are focused on, first).
At the bottom left is ‘Word Frequency’, and a disclosure caret reveals all words in the doc in a list and how many of each. You can sort this alphabetically by clicking on it, then scroll down. If you feel like you used the same adjective too many times too close together, or used a proper name too many times, or used the pronoun instead too many times and feel the proper name of a character should be mentioned a couple times more instead of the pronoun, or any other granular use of words, this can reveal the answer to you.
Click the ‘OK’ button, and the window goes away. I use this all the time.
I’m checking out your proposals tomorrow. Sounds very interesting.
When I reread a chapter in my story after some weeks or month I often find paragraphs where s special words is used to often and “too close” to each other inside a few lines above or below the cursor position. That’s awkward. It happens when I just read a short section an stumble over a bad sentence. Then I switch the word and put an other instead. But then I sometimes realize, that the new word already exists a few lines above or beneath. But this happens by chance. Would be better to see any double wort in the vicinity automatically, inside 5 or 10 lines. To read that 20 lines again cost me lots of time.
Thanks for the hint. I’ll come back to you soon to report my opinion.
Third party tools like Pro Writing Aid often have the ability to find overused words. That might be more efficient than reinventing the feature yourself.
