I have a bunch of different projects, for different types of article for different publications. But in all of them I use the same basic set of labels: Current (green), Admin (pink), Invoiced But Not Yet Paid (charcoal), Not Yet Invoiced (yellow), and Junkpile (purple - the junkpile being a document where I dump paragraphs I’m cutting, so I can draw them back in again if I change my mind).
Is it possible to import labels from another project, rather than having to reset these names and colours for every new project? It’s not a huge amount of trouble to do this, but a shortcut would be useful for us lazy people.
Importing labels is not possible, at least to my knowledge, but you could copy one of your projects, strip off all content (=delete all documents) and save it as a template. So at least you will start your next projects with the given set of labels (among other predefined things).
I use templates a lot. The only problem is to remember which template was which, because I didn’t name them very well…
At what stage does Scrivener crash during this template saving manoeuvre? Is it by any chance just freezing for an inordinate time, rather than completely crashing?
Note that “Save As Template” copies the entire project you’re working on into another location, which involves a much bigger overhead on your computer than the usual Save function (which unless I’m mistaken just updates the files inside your project that need updating). So if you’ve got heaps of content in the project you’re trying to Save As Template, it’ll take a while. If you have an empty project that simply has the colours set up as you like them, it’ll take next to no time.
Obviously, if it is crashing (and not freezing as I’m speculating above), just ignore me…
So far, it freezes for a long time while not appearing to do anything, or else crashes immediately. Sometimes one, sometimes the other.
How long should it take? This is quite a big project I’m using - folders, subfolders, imports, etc.
(Incidentally, I’m wondering if all’s well with it. I couldn’t see a particular document within the project - with contact addresses - but found it by searching for a known address. I labelled it with a colour, but still couldn’t find it; then I searched again, found it, and floated the mouse cursor over its page, to find that it was supposed to be in Research/Contacts/ - but when I look at Research/Contacts in the Binder, there it isn’t. Hm.)
Also, could I ask why you are saving a big project as a template? Generally template projects should be quite small - new projects created from the template will look exactly as the project from which it was created looked at the time you used Save As Template. So usually you set up a project with the label and status settings you want, a few common folders in the binder, perhaps some keywords you always use, and that’s usually about it. You wouldn’t want to use Save As Template on a project with lots of text in it, for instance.
I just want a standard set of labels, and the big project (the one I use most) has them. Apparently there’s no way of exporting labels to another project, so I’m having to set them up for every project, which is a nuisance.
Try again until it crashes and then copy the gobbledegook from the window that appears asking you to send the information to Apple (it’s useless to them but they insist on receiving it ), then send that to me (or copy it into a reply to this thread). Or you can go to ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter and find a crash log for Scrivener in there.
I think you misunderstand the Save As Template function, though. You say you are saving the large project which has the labels in it you want - but do you really want new projects to contain every single document that the project you are trying to save has in it? Save As Template essentially saves a copy of the project, exactly as it is, and then when you create a new project from a template, a new copy is made. So it will include every single document in the binder, not just labels and keywords. What you need to do is create yourself a brand new project, create all the labels and status items etc you want in that, and then save that as a template. Templates should be skeletal projects containing only what you want to see when you create a new project from them (Scrivener has no way of knowing whether you want this or that document to appear in the template or not).
Just copy it in the Finder - select your .scriv file in the Finder and do a copy and paste (it’s best to do it while the project is closed).
Best,
Keith
Ctrl-click in the .scriv icon at the very top of the title bar (where it says the name of your project with the .scriv icon next to it right at the very top of the window, above the toolbar in Scrivener itself) - this will show you where the project is located in the Finder.
Thanks for sending the crash report, by the way. From the report, it seems that OS X choked when trying to serialise (flatten) a large project into the sort of data I use for the templates. I’m using a different process for 2.0 (which zips up the projects), so I hope that will resolve the issue in future.
That seems to be working. I’ve left the Draft folder, and the Research folder, with its subfolders of Current Research and Admin and Contacts and its Junkpile document, where I store bits of pieces that I’m removing and may paste back in somewhere else, and Prices, Wordcounts, Deadlines document, where I store when pieces are due, what they’re going to make and what word count is asked for.
Thanks very much.
Odd that Spotlight wouldn’t find it.
It’s not possible to move documents and folders from one project to another, I seem to remember? Is that right?
I assume I can now trash the copied Project (the copy that I made and stripped down to make the template)?
Oh, I apologise for not making myself clearer in my earlier post – by mentioning how inefficient it is to save a huge project as a template, I was implying that it probably wasn’t a good idea to do so.
You can trash the stripped down project. Did you also empty the trash in Scrivener’s binder before saving it as a template? I assume that unless you do that, all the trashed content will still end up copied in the template’s trash, right?
You can drag items from the binder of one project into another. And yes, you can trash the project you used to make the template once you’re finished with it. I think the Spotlight importer may have a problem on Snow Leopard - I recently rewrote it completely for 2.0.
