Humble suggestions and questions.

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Premise: I don’t know if this is a correct post. I hope so. Let’s say that for each suggestion there’s a hidden question: is already there the possibility to work-around this “absence”?

I’ve downloaded the new version of Scrivener. I found it improved since last April (my first message here). More and more it seems a good solution to me (especially after my last novel: it’d been really difficult to put everything together: all the researches, the pictures, the ideas, the notes… for a 700 pages text. All the time Scrivener was eyeing at me, with a mischievous expression on its Yin-Yang face… “I told you”, whisper a voice in my head.

On the other hand, it isn’t enough yet.

Built-in shortcuts customization and the possibility to link new shortcuts to special character insertion would be an important thing to built in Scrivener: more powerful than “OS X” System Preferences, more handy.
Why customization, apart from “special characters”? Well, simply because things as “presets” must have a shortcut to work in a fluid way during composition. “Point and click” is a slow way to work. Apple shortcut built-in OS X customization often doesn’t work (giving a shortcut to “Apply Presets”, for example, it doesn’t work to me - neither to “Apply Presets”, nor to a single preset. Uh?!).

Second, what gives Scrivener less possibilities to spread out in the world is its only English support tools for writing. Grammar isn’t a real problem: which writer needs that a program corrects his language? Who’s using grammar check? So, let’s not consider “dictionary”. But thesaurus is really, really, really important: no, not English thesaurus; I’m talking about other languages (to me matters Italian). And an important detail: should be “in-line”, for faster revision (hoping for a shortcut to open it).
Of course, not a poor thesaurus: if it has to be poor, better nothing.

Third, and this is not important. It would be good to have a “free zoom” (not fixed values).

Do you have some news/suggestions for me, about something of the above mentioned?

In any case, the program is very well done and I’m watching the videos, just to understand the philosophy behind all these little things and colors and options! :slight_smile: And, well, what I can say to everyone deciding if buying or not Scrivener is to watch them: revelatory!
I need only these few things more (well, I’m on my way to solve the first one by myself) and I’m ready to switch from Word after 20 years worth using Microsoft’s word processor. Scrivener has a lot of good ideas and helps a serious writer in many ways.
So, I’m not criticizing: just pushing it a little bit farther…

Thank you very much in advance for your time and attention.

Regards,
Andrea

2

Shortcuts:
I have never had a problem with shortcuts not working like you describe. But firstly, what were you intending when creating a shortcut to “Apply Presets”? The sub-menu item itself does nothing, so giving it a shortcut would not do anything. As for the individual presets: make sure they are uniquely named (throughout the whole menu system). If you are unsure, use the Help menu search tool. I’ve got four or five shortcuts for presets; use them constantly, and have never had a glitch.

Do they work at all, or are you only have problems in specific areas of the menu system? Which OS version are you using?

Thesaurus (&etc):
Technically speaking, Scrivener doesn’t even provide English support. :slight_smile: I think you’re confusing the Mac OS X tools with Scrivener here. There are common OS X programs (you can find the Dictionary.app program in the Applications folder; it provides services to other applications) hooks to these services in the usual places, but they are all just coming in from the operating system. It would be very expensive to licence good reference materials for even one language, let alone many, and meanwhile one can pick up good thesaurus at a used bookstore for the cost of a light lunch.

3

Amber,

I am interested in creating shortcuts for a couple of presets. Would you be so kind as to give some detail on how to do this? I tried but apparently am doing something wrong.

Thank you in advance!

4

You can customise shortcuts in OS X’s Keyboard preference pane.
Just click on the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab in that pane, and then
“Application Shortcuts” in the sidebar. For example (to add a
shortcut to the “Heading” preset) follow these steps:

  1. Click the + button below the right list
  2. Select Scrivener in the “Application” drop-down
  3. Type in “Heading” for the menu title. This part is
    important, the name of the menu must be typed in completely
    and precisely, including capital letters, and the three dots
    at the end if applicable.
  4. Click into the keyboard shortcut field, and then press the
    keys you wish to use for this shortcut. If you accidentally
    press the wrong keys, you can try again by clicking back in
    this field and press the right combination.
  5. Click the “Add” button.

Now switch back to Scrivener and give it a shot.

5

Amber,

Thank you so much! You really helped me out. There were some contextual menu items that I was not able to make keyboard shortcuts for because they shared a common name within a different menu. However, using these presets and shortcuts is awesome! This will make my usage of Scrivener much easier and enjoyable.

Thanks again! :smiley: