I like the beta. I’m using it on the latest draft of my novel. I wish I could create a top-level folder and copy-drag cards from other folders into it to try different “mixes,” rather than the work-arounds I can see of saving the project with a different name for each mix or doing lots of cuts and pastes to create duplicate cards. There probably is some way to drag-copy cards, I just haven’t figured it. I’d reckon my case is a little unusual in that there are many ways I can handle the chronology of the scenes. Just being able to copy-drag a folder and renaming it “mix1” or w/e would be pretty brilliant.
Oh wait… just realized I can “duplicate” sub-folders of Drafts. That should be the ticket, so, uh, n/m.
Anyway, nice stuff, attractive, useful. I will buy it. Thanks for creating it.
Thanks! Glad you are enjoying it thus far. Have you figured out how to make top-level folders? If you haven’t, the trick is to make sure nothing is selected in the binder before creating a new folder… or to simply move a folder you already have out to the top by selecting it and pressing Ctrl-LeftArrow however many times is necessary.
Cheers for the tips! So I reckon the way I’ll work is to duplicate Drafts sub-folders and then Ctrl-Left them up to the top to try different “mixes” of scene order. Either that or just leave them in Drafts, not sure which…
I like to keep alternate draft tests outside of the draft folder. Reason being, that folder is special, and anything in it is a candidate for compile. Unless I really do want to compile two different versions of the book—but usually I don’t.
Okay. But are you saying you can only compile objects (folders, items) that are in Drafts?
Obviously on some level I haven’t gotten around to grasping the uniqueness of Drafts vs. any other folder I’d create at the top level, and the reasons for that uniqueness.
Yup! That’s the point of that folder. Visualise it this way: the project is for the production of a book (or some other form of text). Everything around the draft is supporting material. Research you have collected; alternate cuts; background stories; you name it. The stuff that goes into the draft folder on the other hand is The Book. Everything in there will be compiled in the order it is placed, into a single linear document for further word processing or submission. So think of it as your construction zone for the work.
Gosh, I’d reckon just about everyone who uses this wishes they could pull the synopsis card in the Inspector down far enough to read the whole card without scrolling.
It doesn’t come up that often, actually. Most people don’t use the index card text to place a lot of text, and instead use the notes field for longer expositions, leaving the card for 1–2 sentence blurbs.
There are a few that really go to town with index cards though, practically writing novels in them. For those, I recommend setting your corkboard so it shows One Huge Index Card in a single column—or get use to Outliner, which handles synopsis in bulk a little better.
All righty, I will use the Notes field for this. Thank you.
I think there will be one or two people like me who have expectations of certain “standard win7 app universal behavior,” that, when they find it to be otherwise within Scrivener, it will cause them a slight jarring sensation. For me, the two cases of this so far are that you get no contextual menu when you right-drag a folder, allowing you to e.g. copy that folder to another folder in the normal fashion; and that there is that dividing line between the card-like Synopsis and the General area of the Inspector that really resembles draggable resize lines in so many other apps. If there were, e.g. a gray border around the card [edit: or a cork board one], it would look like the unchangeable form that it is, rather than a drag-enlargeable field.
