It’s ok, but I don’t really use them that much. If spotlight doesn’t work, I use the terminal usually. But Devonthink itself is very good.
FWIW, I have DevonSphere Express, but have found its results … puzzling. I’m currently using Tembo, which is an express search tool from the HoudahSpot people.
Katherine
thanks very much. I won’t waste time with it. I used to use Tembo. HoudahSpot is much more powerful for more complex searches.
thank you
Your post motivated me to find ways to make the scratchpad more powerful, for example:
- in the scratchpad directory you describe, I created 2 folders, one scratchpad archive and the other scratchpad trash. I created Hazel rules based on content. When I want to archive or delete a scratchpad document, I simply type zzarch or zzdel in the document and hazel automatically moves them to the corresponding folder.
- to work around the absence of styles in the scratchpad, I use the keyboard maestro macro action called “apply styles to clipboard” and created a universal library of styles identical to my Scrivener styles panel which I can use in the scratchpad
- as a workaround to the absence of lists in the scratchpad, I found that if you create a list using the Bear Notes editor → copy → paste the list into the scratchpad, you end up with a fully functional Scrivener list within the scratchpad. By functional I mean that you can move items up, down, left and right, add more items and obviously also delete some and you can change the type of list ie bullet, numbered, roman, etc just like you would in Scrivener
- to create a list rapidly, I created a small list in Bear→ copied to the clipboard → created a Typinator snippet (listyy) and now if I simply type listyy in scratchpad a fully functional list is created
it would be nice if all of this could be implemented in the scratchpad without all the workarounds
I don’t mean to take away from the good conversation on using file system tools and additional software to augment the scratch pad. It is meant to be an integrated tool given how it works on a folder of regular old files, and for most things you might want to do beyond what it does, using other tools is the right answer.
That said, ever since Scrivener 3 made functional improvements to the utility of a simplified project window, I’ve stopped using the scratch pad entirely. Why use an intentionally simplified thing that only does one thing, when you can do that, and do everything a project can do?
Now that more recent versions of macOS have broken the toolkit we were using keep files in real-time sync with the disk, there isn’t anything the scratch pad can do that a project window cannot.
A few ideas for what a project window can do: searching through notes (there is ⌘F in the top list view, as well as Quick Search, or even Project Search if you want to get hardcore), tagging notes with labels and keywords, full text writing and revisioning tools, annotating notes with a synopsis, interlinking them, archival to “hidden” folders, a proper trash system &c.
Over the years people have asked us to add more and more into the scratch pad, but really the things that get asked for are things that already exist, and that would if implemented only serve to make the scratch pad less unique, and more like this…
- Scratch Pad Project Template-Win.zip (108.3 KB)
- Scratch Pad Project Template-Mac.zip (127.5 KB)
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Thank you VERY much for your comment. Your solarized light themed scratchpad like template is superb and I am migrating from my current scratchpad to your template.
I will create a keyboard maestro macro to insure that it is alway floating when activated.
I had a look at your template and would have 2 questions:
1- I notice that the view is editor horizontal split, but I can’t figure out how you put the list of notes/docs on top. What is the “list of notes” in Scrivener terms ? It’s not a Binder, not a corkboard, not an outline. In other words, how could I reproduce the horizontal split view with list of docs on top in any Scrivener project I am working in ? It would be useful to know because the binder often takes up too much space but needs to be there like when you drag and drop files. It that case, I can hide the binder drag and drop in the docs list at the top.
2- in my current (standard) scratchpad, when I drag and drop a PDF into a Note (not into the notes list), a fully scrollable PDF is inserted into the note. With your scratchpad 2.0 template, I only see the first page of the PDF. I suspect that this is a configuration issue, but I can’t find the parameter
Thanks again very much !
You’re welcome!
Yeah! I wish that were a persistent project setting, one that could even be saved into the template—but a macro does the trick nicely, especially since it has an if condition for matching a specific window title.
But it is an Outliner. 
I’ve removed all of the stuff from it that come along with a default setup: there is only one column, the title, and icons are removed from it. The header and footer bars are remove to make it even cleaner. The other settings are navigational: binder affects top editor only (so you can easily switch between large groups of notes), with the special exclusion set to open non-group items in “other”, thus clicking on files in the binder loads in the lower half, and finally outliner selection in the top half affects the editor on the lower half.
So that’s the recipe, and you could do it by hand, but just take this window and open the Window ▸ Layouts ▸ Manage Layouts… panel, create a layout, and then apply it to your other project. You’ll want to enable the setting to preserve outliner and corkboard settings, with that. And you might also want to “back up” your current project window layout first—and now really any project can become this. Of course Layouts don’t load items into splits, so you may need to do some navigation to make the setup sensible, after switching.
I have an “Inbox” folder in most of my large projects, and have this particular setup saved as a Layout, it’s a nice way to shrink an otherwise sprawling project down to nothing, so that it can be used to gather notes from other sources. When I’m done I just load my sprawling layout and carry on.
That isn’t specific to this layout, that’s just what happens to PDF files you drop into the main editor. It considers PDF a vector image format and isn’t designed to work any other way—try it in TextEdit as well (or the regular scratch pad for that matter), you’ll get the same weird result.
I pinned the top list to the Research folder on purpose though (it is renamed to “Notes” by the by). Put that PDF into the top list, not the editor on the bottom.
thanks very much for all the explanations. I am extremely happy with the results which will greatly help my workflow because I am constantly working in different apps : browsers, pdfs, mindmaps, etc
have a nice day
Folks, thank you for this discussion and for sharing the scratch pad project. The template imported well into the Win 3 beta, only needed to remove extraneous Outliner columns from the upper window.
Best,
Jim
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Uh, yeah, wow trying that, then trying to fix it, and then saving an updated template, exposes a lot of bugs! And frankly I couldn’t even fix the project. I presume it may have something to do with the fact that it was created from a very old Mac template that I use as my blank starter for all projects. Maybe it even goes back to the Mac alpha days, and doesn’t quite do things the way the Windows beta was programmed to expect. I don’t know, I tried to fix it, and it just outright refused to ever work the way it was supposed to.
So I completely redid it from scratch with a new blank project and tested it on Windows to make sure it doesn’t blow up. Now it works as expected on both platforms. I’ve updated the original link for any other Windows beta users interested in trying it. I noticed three things did not convey across platforms properly no matter what I tried, but they are all very minor and preferential:
- It was supposed to show up in a custom “Notetaking” category for templates, not “Misc”.
- View ▸ Use Label Color In ▸ Outliner Rows was to be enabled.
- Project Settings: Special Folders: Default New Bookmarks Folder is supposed to be set to “Notes”.
Thanks for letting me know, Jim.
Thanks Ioa, I’ve moved to v2 of your Scratchpad project on the v3 beta! So far so good… 
I have been using the new Scratchpad for a few days and am very happy. In terms of workflow, I would like to be able to toggle between the currently Scratchpad layout and editor only when I am working in a specific note.
In your opinion, what would be the quickest way to do so ?
My instinctive solution was to toggle between editor only and Scratchpad layout, but that does not work because when you switch to editor only, the focus in the Binder becomes the focused document, and when you return to the Scratchpad layout, the notes list is empty (because the focus in the binder has moved from “Notes” to the current document.
thank you Ioa
For quickly switching between common layouts, I’ve assigned a few to F-keys. Each layout you create is listed off the Window ▸ Layouts ▸ submenu, so it’s a reliable binding.
As for optimising what gets loaded where, this where using Keyboard Maestro, to handle your shortcut management instead of the OS, could be the ticket. Consider that you can use the Navigate menu to focus a specific editor pane, and then once the focus is there, jump directly to any specific note with Quick Search, all with keyboard commands and typing. E.g., your “F5” key that loads the layout could not only do that, but always load the “Inbox” folder in the top pane and select the last note in the list into the bottom pane. I’ve never gone to that length, but now that I think about it, I might. 
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The combination of layout + navigation with a so.called keyboard maestro conflict palette solves the problem. Thanks very much IOA
I have been using Scratchpad 2 for a few days and was very happy. All of a sudden I can no longer paste into documents, neither from the system clipboard nor from a clipboard manager like Paste’em. I can still drag and drop text/images into documents. The problem
The problem is unique to that project, not others.
I tried closing / re-opening the Scratchpad 2 project, quitting and restarting Scrivener, quitting Paste’em, rebooting my computer, but the problem persists.
So I simply closed the Scratchpad 2 project and have come back to the old Scratchpad
I don’t feel like reinstalling Scrivener and resetting all the pref parameters.
In this forum I notice one instance where it is described but with the Windows version.
thank you
I can’t think of what might cause that; although contorted by settings, it’s really just a normal project window.
The standard troubleshooting I’d run is:
- Shut off all automation tools and shortcut accessibility utilities (BetterTouchTool, KM, etc.)
- If that doesn’t immediately solve the problem, try the various different paste commands: contextual menu, and from the main Edit menu. And while there, verify the shortcuts are in the right place.
- Run a safe boot cycle, check there, then reboot normally.
- If automation was the trigger, launch each one individually and test. Sometimes I’ve found these kinds of tools will glitch, and a simple restart of them is enough to get normal mouse/keyboard input back.
- Clear that project’s interface settings. You should have the layout saved at this point, so it’ll be a simple matter of getting back to where it was—if not, use the project template to create a fresh layout.
Reinstallation is the last thing I would try, and I don’t think resetting preferences would be necessary.
I hugely enjoy working in the Scratch Pad Project Template you created. It had a big impact on my workflow.
Just for my intellectual curiosity, I would like to better understand how you create the horizontal split with the list of document on the top and the editor on the bottom.
As you instructed, I removed all outliner columns, and set preferences to binder affects top editor only with the special exclusion set to open non-group items in “other”.
I understand that I can generate the split view by changing the layout to Scratchpad with list of top (which I do all the time), but I would like to know how I can manually create the split view with list on top to better understand the inner working of Scrivener and give me more flexibility in configuring my projects.
In other words, I would like to understand how to manually create the scratchpad with list of top layout myself (apart from the above which I understand)
thanks very much !
Do these steps in sequence:
1 - For the horizontal split:
If you have ever used a Scriv Layout with two editors divided by a vertical split, then this is the same thing, except divided by a horizontal split. I’m on Windows, so the Windows navigation to achieve a horizontal split is View > Editor Layout > Split Horizontally.
2 - For the list on top:
Click in the top editor. To select the Outliner, on Windows the navigation would be View > Outliner.
3 - For controlling the editor on the bottom:
Click in the top editor. To set the Outliner to control the bottom editor, on Windows the navigation would be Navigate > Outliner selection affects > Other editor
There are probably another three or four variations possible for achieving this layout. As these other methods would involve pressing Mac function keys of which I am ignorant, or clicking on buttons that may not be visible, I went with menu options. Hopefully the equivalent Mac navigations are easy for you to locate.
Best,
Jim
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WOW ! a superb explanation. Everything is crystal clear. I could reproduce all your instructions on my Mac. I solved my problem and gave me the means to be more creative in setting up projects.
Thank you so much and have a nice weekend !!
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