I’ve been exploring the software’s potential to streamline my writing process, especially when working on location-based narratives. One feature I’ve been particularly interested in is integrating real-time location data into my projects. Specifically, I’m curious about how I might leverage the functionality of “What city am I currently in” within Scrivener to enhance the contextual relevance of my writing, whether for travel memoirs, city-specific essays, or even novels set in real-world locations.
I understand that Scrivener is primarily a tool for writing and organizing large projects, but I’m wondering if there’s a way to incorporate navigational tools or location-based APIs into the writing environment. For instance, is there a method to create a template or a custom metadata field that could pull in my current city’s name, allowing me to have that information automatically available as I write? This could be particularly useful when working on sections of a narrative that require accurate, real-time geographical context.
Additionally, I’d appreciate insights into how other writers or developers might be using similar tools or workarounds in Scrivener to achieve this. Are there any integrations or third-party tools that play well with Scrivener’s current setup? Would this require a significant amount of coding knowledge, or is it something that could be handled by someone with a more general understanding of the software’s customization options?
Moreover, I’m interested in understanding the potential limitations of this approach. For example, would pulling in real-time location data affect Scrivener’s performance or lead to any security concerns? How might this impact the overall workflow for someone who frequently changes locations, and are there best practices for managing such dynamic data within a static writing environment like Scrivener?
Finally, if anyone has suggestions on how to test this functionality or simulate it within Scrivener before committing to any substantial changes, that would be incredibly helpful. I’m eager to hear from other Scrivener users who might have experimented with similar features or have ideas on how to make this concept a reality.
Create “location guides” in your project bookmarks.
There are several ways to do this, but I would start with a top-level folder outside your draft folder “Location guides”
Within that folder, create new documents for each location.
Then add working links into each location document - ie: links to websites, maps, research folders, files on your hardrive etc.
Now, just drag/drop those location docs (with the links) to your project bookmarks in your inspector. A preview will show in your inspector. You can also set the links to open in their native program in a quick reference panel.
The best part, is that as you edit the docs in your binder, the bookmark panel will also update when you link like this.
If you have a LOT of locations, you might want to bookmark the “location guide” folder and create links to each location sheet right in that folder/doc. Its a few extra clicks, but may help condense your bookmark list, rather like an index. (Or maybe group locations by continent, or country so all choices show without scrolling?)
There are some excellent posts on creating these type of project bookmarks.
For a programmer[1] that wanted to use an API to get the current location, there are probably better ways of integrating that information with Scrivener than trying to integrate it in Scrivener, if that makes sense.
Additionally, there are better ways to get that information than what you are proposing. Your computer probably already knows exactly where you are, down to centimeters in some cases, and can be polled for that information (where do you think any website is getting that from if it is more accurate/specific than an unreliable IP address backtrace). This data can then be pasted or injected into the active buffer using various accessibility methods or other SDKs, such as Services on a Mac. It’s the same thing in principle that a text expansion tool does, and indeed if you use one of those you might already be able to use it to trigger your script that gathers the data, and skip coding the injection part.
I could, for example, make a text expansion that inserts the local weather if I’m online.
So again, that’s kind of a computer level thing though, that benefits all your software. Being able to type in ‘getLoc’ into anything at all and having it print “Paris, France” or whatever, no matter where you type it, is going to be time better spent than any time trying to make Scrivener somehow do that for you.
