Confused by what Include in Compile actually means in various situations.
Changing a folder’s Include in Compile setting doesn’t seem to effect the same setting for documents or folders within that folder.
Setting the Include in Compile setting in a Template document does not seem to pass that setting to new documents made from that Template.
Many poeple in this forum have said that documents and folders outside of the Manuscript/Draft folder never have their Include in Compile setting set to true and are never included in compile. But there are Front Matter and Back Matter folders in many of Scrivener’s provided Project Templates and presumably the contents of these folders can be included in compile.
Specifically, it would seem reasonable that the Template Sheets folder and all of its documents could be set to not Include in Compile, but to be able to set documents created from these templates to Include in Compile when they are created, or to be able to set all new documents in any particular folder to Include in Compile by default.
I have set up a Search Collection for a keyword that is present in a Template Sheet, and thus present in all daughter documents. But my search collection will not find such keywords in my Search “Included Documents” search setting because that setting must be set manually and is not inherited from the Template Sheet from which it is made. Ideally, my Template Sheets folder and all documents therein should be set to not Include in Compile, and the daughter docs created from these Template Sheets should default to the “Include in Compile” setting of their parent folder so that my Search Collection will show only daughter documents containing that keyword and not the Template Sheet from which they are made.
Is there a way to set and or unset the Include in Compile for all documents within a particular folder, and to control whether or not new documents in a folder inherit the Include in Compile setting of their parent document, or to tell a Template Sheet to inherit the Include in Compile setting of any folder with the Default Template for Subdocuments set to that Template Sheet? Its it actually true that my only option is to manually choose the Include in Compile setting for all documents within a folder?
Is there some way to accomplish this in a more automated, less time consuming way??
In the Contents pane of the Compile screen, select all the relevant documents. You can then option-click in the “include” check box to include/uninclude all the selected documents. You can use the dropdown menu and filters at the top of that list to limit what appears in the document list. And this setting is persistent to the next time you run the Compile command.
I am not asking this question in reference to the Compile process or settings. I am asking because project search and search collection criteria includes the option to search “included” documents and or search “excluded” documents. So I want to have all documents within a particular folder set as “included” (such that my search collection will find them and only them). I would like to set up template documents so that any doc added to a particular folder automatically inherits the “included” attribute set for the template that folder is assigned to. I am using this function while writing. Helps me to stay organized and to navigate my Project as I write and resarch and review and revise.
The fastest and easiest way to change the “Include in Compile” setting for a large number of documents is via the Compile command.
If you are using the “Include in Compile” flag as a stand-in for some other property, such as the revision status of a file, you might find that some other metadata will serve the purpose more effectively. Or, you might use the “Search Binder Selection Only” option to limit your search collection.
So it’s a bug? Why isn’t the “Include in Compile” setting of a Template document inherited by all documents automatically created from this Template? Why can’t I set the “Include in Compile” for all documents within a folder? Why would I have to go to Compile to set this when it is an attribute that can be used as criteria when creating a Search Collection? There seems to be a cognitive disconnect here in the interface design of Scrivener. Compile settings should be independent from editing and navigation settings? No? I know why I am setting up my Search Collection criteria the way that I am setting them. They should work as indicated. Perhaps it would be good to have two sets of user saved and named global settings, one set for editing, one for compiling (output). The sets would include all such user defined settings. But the user could choose one setting for editing, and perhaps another or others for compile. Or the user could choose to set both editing and compile to the same global setting set? No? The base metaphor that Scrivener seems uses, is that eating and compile are separate processes, that nothing one does in compile should interfere with the editing process, but this metaphor is full of holes in actual practice. Look, I love Scrivener, but I am constantly finding inconsistencies, continuity breaks in its use, in its tools, in its interface and workflow metaphor. I mention these things hoping for updates with fixes.
It is “problematic” (your wording) because while I am writing, I avoid the Compile side of Scrivener like the plague ). The whole wonderful notion of Scrivener, a notion promoted by Literature & Latte in ads, documentation, and instructional videos, is to write unencumbered by style and layout and typographic and pre-press overhead. Bravo! I love this about Scrivener!
I use Search Collections extensively while I write, while I outline, while I edit, while I revise. The many search parameter settings in Project Search (and therefore, for the setup of search Collections) are extremely helpful during the writing process.
That other side of Scrivener, the output side, the “Compile” side, introduces a cognitive load I don’t want to have to deal with while I write. So, to the extent that the writing side of Scrivener makes use of settings also used over in he Compile side, I am just using the settings that I can change from the writing side.
I have created Search Collections that only work when I set the Search “Included” Documents or the Search “Excluded” Documents search filter criteria. This works because I can set the Include/Exclude in Compile from several placed (metadata, list view… all from the writing outlining organizing editing side of Scrivener.
What would make all of this easier of course if scrivener allowed Template documents to pass their Include in Compile status to wherever they are cloned in a Scrivener Project. Would also be awesome should one be able to apply an Include/Exclude attribute for all documents within a folder or folder tree. Setting options for this could be All Documents, All New Documents, or Ask Each Time. Would also be wonderful if Include/Exclude would be a selection available in the Context Menu when Binder Items are selected. Is there a setting to make Include/Exclude status visible for items the Binder view?
No, documents based on templates are not templates, and that’s nothing Scrivener specific. “Exclude Templates” refers to the Template folder like “Exclude Trash Documents” refers to the Trash folder.
You keep repeating that so allow me to repeat too: They do pass the Include in Compile status. If it didn’t work for you something went wrong.
You can create a document with all the features you like, keywords and such, and Include in Compile ticked. Then move it into the Template folder and create a duplicate, just untick Include in Compile afterwards. New files based on either template will have their respective Include in Compile status.
If you didn’t use Label colours you could dedicate one to (Not) Included, that would be visible in the Binder and you would have access to it via context menu.
If you didn’t use Status you could rename one to “(Not) Included”. Maybe even if you did use Status and “Include in Compile” equals “Done” to you. That would be available in the context menu too, just not visible in the Binder.
And if so, you would accompany either with a filter in Compile that would override the Include in Compile setting: You would compile All documents but only with or without the Label or the Status “My Include in Compile”.
Thanks, but having to arbitrarily set a metadata attribute for each item in a my binder, a setting that would not be linked in any way, would not control the “include/exclude from compile” setting, would make my life way worse and wouldn’t help at all. Are you suggesting this because it would be a setting that would be inherited from any template document that was set to that color? Just seems like one more thing to keep track of. I wan’t less details not more. Seems a redundancy and a confusion to build an attribute that does what include/exclude is supposed to do. But I will look into this, give it a try. I am already using lables to track another aspect of my project. Wouldn’t it be great if any custom metadata could be made available in the binder, and from the context menu referencing a binder item(s)?
No, documents cloned from templates do not inherit the included in compile setting here. I am using Scrivener 3.4. on 2018 and 2019 intel MacBook Pros running Sequoia 15.3.1.
I am wondering if I have a corrupted Scrivener application or if my project has become corrupted in some way.
I just tested myself and confirmed that the “Include in Compile” flag is inherited from a template in the Interactive Tutorial Project with Scrivener 3.4.
If that’s not the behavior you are seeing, then something is wrong. The first thing to check would be to create a new template in your Template Folder with that flag set, and create a new document from that template.
If that doesn’t work, the next thing to check would be to do the same thing in either a brand new project or the Tutorial.
If that doesn’t work either, please open a support ticket.