Is it possible to choose a lower position in typewriter mode?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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Is it possible to choose a lower position in typewriter mode?
Too little content to center on small screens
like ulysses！

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Hi, lanqi, and welcome to the Forums.

Center is the default with typewriter scrolling, but you have several options. In a surprising development, the setting which controls that is to be found in Scrivener’s Preferences under the Editing tab. :wink:

gr

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Doesn’t fix the too little content “problem” (starting fresh, you need to type enough for the typewriter feeling to kick in). I put problem in quotes because it could be exactly how Keith envisioned it, either by choice or based on underlying technical limitations.

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I may have missed that part of it as well when I categorised this as a support question. If you do mean to artificially add whitespace in an empty document so that typing is always on a specific spot rather than until you get to that spot, then it would be more of a wishlist thing—however it’s worth noting it is indeed a technical limitation last we looked. Rich text editors tend to be less easy to control than plain-text, as there are many more moving parts.

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I know you won’t comment on future plans, but is this something that you would implement if it was (or becomes) “easier” on a technical level? As small as it seems, it’s on my internal wishlist for a long time, too – but if the answer is “never”, it might be healthier to just let it go.

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I can’t think of a good reason why not, at least with the Typewriter scrolling always jumps to scroll line setting enabled. With it off (which it is by default), I think makes less sense since there is no solid fixed position anyway.

But with that setting on, not starting at the scroll point goes against the purpose of the feature: of having a predictable point on the screen you can always be assured that the cursor will be at, rather than maybe somewhere above the scroll point, until it gets to that point. To my mind that’s always been the big advantage of the feature, and why I turn that setting on.

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Thanks, that makes perfect sense!

(Aside: Some time ago I was wondering what would happen if editors actually took the word “typewriter” literally and glued the caret to the center of the screen. Like in… scrolling the whole page horizontally. Turned out somebody else had the same question and built one. Including simulated “type bar jams” as a penalty for sloppy technique and excessive typing speed. Let me put it this way: There is a something like “too much” in life.)

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Indeed! I was going to say, as I was reading your post, that I’ve used a program like that before and it’s one of those things that works better on paper than on screen!

There are some interesting typewriter-esque programs that enforce other rigours as well—such as no backspace (and glyph overlapping so if you move the “platen” back and type over previously typed stuff you just put words on top of words, or more practically, hyphens to strike it out). Fun, and maybe even a little productive, but only for certain kinds and phases of writing.

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Sounds like that one OverType - The Over-The-Top Typewriter Simulator

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I just tried it.
This is either a joke, or simply retarded. :crazy_face: :skull_and_crossbones: :face_vomiting:

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Even cheesier, it was a program called Visual Typewriter that I don’t think exists any longer except from software archives.

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For a better experience (but iOS) check out Hanx Writer, produced by typewriter collector Tom Hanks:

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