Show Notes, References, Keywords and Snapshots in the Inspector in their own frames.
And, all the frames should be resizeable.
I don’t see that Notes, References, Keywords or Snapshots are mutually exclusive yet they are implemented that way where only 1 may be viewed at a time. These should each be in their own collapsible frames the same as Synopsis and Meta-Data.
Note: Originally posted on the Win/Feedback list.
Hi,
Thanks for your feedback. There are always space constraints, and the inspector is designed to work on screens from netbooks up to behemoths, so I’m afraid there are no current plans to change this, though.
All the best,
Keith
Though it’s been graciously addressed, I’d like to chime in anyway in support of this feature request. Particularly when in tree-pruning or rearranging mode, it would be most helpful to have a more comprehensive inspector view upon selecting a document. On today’s larger monitors, there is ample space to display keywords, references and notes all at once.
Since Scrivener already supports a split editor pane, perhaps an option to calve off another inspector pane? A second instance of the same object would surely be easier to program and work with than a collection of independent display modules awkwardly sharing space within the inspector. A two-column-capable inspector would give the user a fighting chance to keep up a preferred view.
Just a hopeful thought.
This is my first post here… I have been an avid user of this software since version 2 was released and I have to say it is one of the first applications I install on every new computer I upgrade to.
I’m sorry if my attitude comes across as “shitsukoi” or insistant, but it is very hard working with both keywords and notes. I have to keep flipping backwards and forwards between the two repeatedly, this is making things almost harder than it would be were to use a separate program in which to keep my chapter notes!!!
I am aware that this program is also to be used on small monitors since I, myself use in on my beloved iBook 12" (THANK YOU FOR CONTINUED PPC SUPPORT!!!) In such a case, the user can just choose to have one - previously referred to by the OP - “frame” visible in the inspector… However, on my triple monitor set up, not having the option to view the notes inspector at the same time as the keywords is REALLLLLY time consuming.
Yes, there is the project notes viewer (HUD), but I might as well just use notational velocity or evernote to achieve almost the same effect.
If it is not possible to the various inspector frames collapsable and expandable, how about some inspector HUDs, like the PROJECT keyword HUD… <— If that had the option to be file specific and link to the currently displayed file in one of the editors, say, rather than the whole project then that would simplify matters immensely…
I do still feel that a multi-frame inspector would be a Really Nice Addition™, though.
Best of luck on the continued development of what I consider to be the best writer’s tool on any platform, ever!
Since you’re on a Mac, have you tried using QuickReference windows for this? It is true you’d need to load them separately for each of the documents you’re working with, rather than having something linked immediately to the editor, but it’s not much extra work; you can just tap the spacebar on the binder selection or click the QR icon when working in the editor and have the window pop up. Here you can view document notes or keywords and even adjust the divider in the window so that you’re looking only at that meta-data rather than the document text. It’s resizable, so you can take up as much space with your document notes as you like. The shortcuts for jumping between the different inspector panes work here, too, which makes the process faster.
Thanks for the idea. Yes, I have tried the Quick Ref panels. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, they are not linked to the file and moreover, every time they open, a new window appears (which is useful for referring to many articles). However, the view defaults to the text only, I then have to select the keywords from the dropdown list.
That means:
[]select file
[]open Quick ref
[]select keywords / notes from drop down
[]remember to close when finished.
I really would like to have an inspector with a draggable partition or expandable and collapsable like office/creative suite and others.
Those apps have very different inspectors to Scrivener’s which do very different things, each with predefined heights to their elements, so they aren’t really comparable.
All the best,
Keith
That the inspector uses tab, toggle and rollup controls to tell of a single document is powerful evidence that its many functions have outgrown its allocated space. An expanded inspector would fit nicely as an option for the second editing pane.
Also, the present concise inspector should display counters for its undisplayed items: bytes of notes, count of comments, count of doc refs, etc., to spare the user several needless investigative clicks.
That doesn’t really follow. These are standard ways of collapsing or switching between data in an inspector, and the same argument could be used to say that the inspectors of Nisus Writer or Photoshop have outgrown their allocated space.
That would be horrible, sorry. The whole point of the inspector is that it shows the information for the document you are currently viewing in the editor. If you had to explicitly load it into a separate editor, then it would be much more cumbersome, requiring more clicks to access the data, and then you’d lose a whole editing pane just to view subsidiary data.
I think that is overcomplicating things significantly, and really, what is the point of all that information? Why would anyone need to know how many references a document contains? As it stands, you can already tell at a glance which aspects of the inspector contain any data by the presence of the asterisks in their icons.
I’m not saying I’m averse to overhauling the inspector in a putative version 3.0, but the current inspector works very well and achieves everything it sets out to. If you strongly disagree, please make a labelled drawing of how you see the inspector working (not as something that gets loaded in the main editor) or refer to an inspector that tries to do anything comparable in another app that you think could serve as an example, and I’ll happily take a look with an open mind.
Quite right. It’s not the number of controls that indicates an overloaded panel, but how frequently they’re needed per document.
Programs that have been developed for years and have reached a certain level of complexity, tend to handle the problem of overloaded object property panels through toolbars that float, dock, stack, collapse, can be hidden and revealed through menu options and shortcuts rather than solely through tabs, and are not mutually exclusive. The toolbars in LibreOffice are an example. This isn’t Scrivener’s aesthetic and I’m glad of it; that’s why I was trying to identify columnar space. But the broad approach does offer the user immediate access to the controls that fit his workstyle in a given session.
Ahem, never noticed those. Thanks, Keith.
This is something that will be coming; the Mac version does have the ability to access the various inspector tabs via the menu/keyboard, and this will be added to Windows as well.
Thanks, MM. Any chance Scrivener could display a document’s ref# in the Inspector and in the outline view? I know that number is “inside baseball” but it provides the easiest way to add an internal link. I think it’s a bit cumbersome to work a cascading menu to link to a document I’m already looking at.