Hello everyone,
I have a folder structure where each folder represents a chapter, and inside each folder, I have several text documents representing different scenes of the chapter.
I would like to exclude an entire chapter (folder and its contents) so that it does not appear in Scrivenings mode and is not included in the outliner numbering.
How can I achieve this? I want the chapter to be completely “muted” without removing it from the project.
Thank you!
If this “muted” chapter is also not something you intend to compile, you could toggle that flag off for the whole thing, and then regularly use the Navigate ▸ Open ▸ with Compilable Subdocuments menu command (you could put a keyboard shortcut on it, too). This will use your regular view mode (Scrivenings, Corkboard, Outliner), but drop anything that isn’t checked off for compile.
Even if you do intend to compile it, but aren’t compiling regularly right now, you could use this combination of features to achieve the effect temporarily.
Thank you, it works perfectly.
As this scenario was new to me, I’d like to explain it in more detail.
My goal is to evaluate whether to remove certain chapters, so I want to reread, assess the length, word count, and number of chapters without these sections.
While your suggested process is effective, I think a “mute” feature (activated from the binder via right-click or a checkbox in the Inspector) would be useful. This would allow users to temporarily hide content and experiment with excluding chapters, while easily reverting changes. This would be especially helpful since the undo command doesn’t work for folder movements.
Another way would be to highlight /label the questionable chapters with a color like red. Now select all the other chapter and scenes and add to a collection (Novel Version 1 or name anything else). Right click the desired/selected files and choose add to the collection. Once create this static collection if click one file in it and then CTRL + A will see this in Scrivenings view to read this arrangement thru as a possible Novel version as one continous file without changing the binder order. You can create multiple novel versions this way.
Look at File > Options to further fine tune the Scrivenings appearance.
Yeah you’re pretty much describing the design intent of the Collections feature at this point! Drag and drop the whole draft folder contents into a new empty collection, with the Opt key held down to include all child items of the containers you are dragging, and then go through and trim out the stuff you’re thinking of removing. You could Shift-click to select the top level of the draft, or use the Corkboard after clicking on Draft, to drag from.
You could even compile from this collection list if you want, to get a better idea of how it will read, but don’t forget collections themselves are containers that can be loaded into the main editor and viewed as scrivenings, outliners, etc.[1]
See Figure 10.3 in the user manual PDF, with the button marked (b). ↩︎
Thank you for these helpful suggestions!
I just have two quick clarification questions… to ensure I’m not missing any features or options:
1. Collections: Can I view the entire document by selecting just the collection name (like selecting ‘Draft’ in the main binder) and switching to Scrivenings mode? Currently, I need to select all folders within the collection.
2. Outliner in collections: The numbering reflects the original binder position (e.g., 1, 3, 4 if chapter 2 is excluded). Is there a way to adjust numbering to reflect the order within the collection itself?
On the first question, that is what the footnote I added leads you to. There is a button, illustrated in that figure in the manual, up by the button that closes the collection, that loads the collection into the main editor kind as though it were a folder. Refer to subheading, Viewing the Contents of a Collection in the Editor, just a bit below that screenshot, to see further tips. This button is only one way. You can easily go straight to it in the main editor without even switching the sidebar to it first.
So yup, you can read the contents of a collection like you would the whole draft—only without the parts you want included, or in different order from the draft too, if that is what you are experimenting with. All of the view modes are available, it even remembers things you change, like folders do. Moving cards around on the corkboard changes the collection order, using Freeform mode will save the positions of each card into the collection, etc.
And that answers your second question as well. If you are selecting elements from the collection manually, instead of viewing the collection itself, then yes the numbering is from the original. This is mean to be useful in case you do need to know that. But if you view the collection itself, then the numbering will reflect that container that you’re looking at. Scene D will be 5 and Scene C will be 6, and if you take some things out, it will renumber.
Thank you for your patience!
I realized I was just adding the “folder” without the “documents”, and got confused because when clicking on the folders in the sidebar, I could see the child documents.
I see! Okay that makes more sense then, that is why you would want to drop with the Opt key held down as that brings in everything below what you have selected, too. The folders then act more like dividers in the list.
Great discussion. Thank you all!
