Ideas to beef up the Composition mode

Scrivener Wish List
1

Hello there Literature and Latte (or whatever your real name might be :wink: )

First of all I wanted to tell you how much I love Scrivener. It’s really the best writing software I’ve ever come in contact with and you’ve done a phenomenal job at making it (close to) perfect.
And there are a lot of cool features to make writing on large projects as productive and structured as possible. (Going with the George RR Martins theory that every writer is either an architect or a gardener I’d say Scrivener definitely appeals to the architect types).

However I have a few ideas that could improve the Composition mode. I like using it to actually write as it spaces out the entire UI to let me actually focus on writing. Though I think there is a bit more functionality that could be added there.

  1. Add the ability to have two documents open in composition mode, even if one is smaller and side-bared while the other has focus. I always keep all my notes and outlines in scrivener as well and love the split screen option to view both the outline and the actual text at the same time. But having the same functionally in composition mode - the rest of the UI would be amazing.

  2. Add a “text focus” where maybe the last (or two) sentence(s) are being focused while the rest is slowly spaced out so that the focus of writing is actually on the single sentence I’m working on at a time.

  3. Move the document-navigation button-thingy from the bottom to the left side and let it effectively be the binder sidebar that can be spaced in when moving the mouse to the left.

Anyways, I’d be interested in what you think of these and if you don’t feel these changes would fit into your vision for Scrivener elaborate a bit because I’d otherwise be interested in what you had planne for the composition mode (or do you consider it finished?). Hope you had a good new years eve and all the best.

Katee

2

Hi,

Regarding having two documents open in Composition mode, have you tried using QuickReference panels? You can have these open all around the document in Composition mode, allowing you to have several documents open.

For everything else, though, have you tried just using regular Full Screen mode? This expands the window to fill the entire screen (on Lion and above), and you can set up the Preferences to have different colours used in the interface in this mode. This gives you the full features of the regular interface while blocking out everything else on the screen, and is a better fit if you want access to more features.

The plan for Composition mode is to keep it simple - the idea is that it is just a piece of virtual paper against the screen and nothing else, much like the simple text editors so in vogue these days.

Thanks, and happy New Year!

All the best,
Keith

3

Hey there,

thanks for your quick reply. I’ll try using the Quickreference Pannels.

I like the idea behind the composition mode, having it simple. The idea was that it could be made more into what other “Distraction free” writing tools like iA Writer already are but have the integration and power of Scrivener. Sort of a balance.