Hi,
I’m really enjoying using Scapple, but I was wondering if there was a way to change from the default blue colour of the html link text?
I’m using light text on a dark background, and the blue of the current link text is illegible.
I’m guessing that this is something that won’t be available until Scapple is compatible with Dark Mode, but I just thought I would ask. 
Many thanks,
Ian
There isn’t a setting for that, and it currently doesn’t play well with cleared foreground colour settings either (where one can get dynamic text colour based on the background).
I’ll check and see if we can do something about the link colour. I think everything else is voluntary, one can make a “dark mode” board and default setup if they want. The complicated part of the problem with a static colour for links is that we can’t assume system Dark Mode = Dark Board, since Scapple fits in the group of programs that should display content in native colours.
Thanks for your reply, and great to hear that you’re looking into it.
Since the addition of a Dark mode for Scrivener I have found myself using the program even more (I have always struggled with bright screens), and being able to work on a dark background in Scapple makes the two programs sit well together.
I’m really growing to love working in Scapple, and finding it a great tool for quickly working on ideas. I love the fact that I can link to the Scapple files from the Scrivener Document Bookmarks, and see a preview of each board. It feels good to have a connection between the two programs so that I can have multiple Scapple boards for different items within Scrivener, and still keep track of them all (I currently have 106 separate Scapple boards for one particular project).
I did have one thought related to the links though (and perhaps I should have placed this in a separate post):
I read that it is possible to link to local files on the computer from within Scapple. I have thought a few times while I was working, that it would be really useful to be able to link to specific items within a Scrivener Project (Text items / Folders etc.). I find myself making quick notes in the Scapple file, and then expanding upon them in a Scrivener folder. Currently, I can link from Scrivener to Scapple with a Document Bookmark, but it would be great to link back from Scapple too.
I don’t suppose this is possible, but I thought it may be a rather useful addition in future.
Many thanks,
Ian
If you check your Scapple menu for updates, you’ll find the 1.3.2 update with Dark Mode UI. That should fit in more nicely with your preferred board settings. As for the link colour, well as you can tell by the timing we were unfortunatelly all ready to release rather than add new things. It’s on the list, no fear, but it’ll have to wait for a future update.
As for linking to Scrivener items, that is indeed a very useful thing to be able to do! I link to Scrivener items from all sorts of places, including other projects, Scapple, text files, to-do lists, etc. Within Scrivener it is as easy as dragging and dropping from one binder into a linking context, like Bookmarks. For linking from other programs though, you’ll need a URL. Select the item in Scrivener, and use the Edit ▸ Copy ▸ Copy Document as External Link menu command. That’ll work anywhere from a Mac that has this project stored in the right path. In fact we even have a compile option in Scrivener that will automatically add these links to the prefix of each section. It’s a great proofing tool as you can drop that hyperlinked PDF into the binder and click the section link to load it in the other split and make your edit.
To briefly comment on that: yes.
Wow, great timing! Lovely to see Scapple in Dark mode - it makes a huge difference! 
That’s fantastic to hear about linking to Scrivener items - I’m constantly surprised by the program’s hidden depths.
I have been struggling to work out when it does and doesn’t work though.
I tend to work with the editors split, the left locked to the Outliner, and the right editor for documents (and locked to composite mode for subdocuments).
I have found that the external link will open okay when there is just a single editor, but I can’t get it to open when in split view. Is this the expected behaviour?
I don’t think I’ll use this feature much for the moment while the links are still dark, but it’s great to know about it for the future.
Many thanks again,
Ian
If by locked you mean the “Lock in Place” feature that turns the editor header bar pink, then yeah that would stop external links from loading, same as clicks in the binder, etc.
Otherwise no, there are no known issues with splits or any particular combination of settings used with them. If you could provide a sample project that I could test with, including instructions on which item to copy an external link for and attempt to activate, that would be great. I tried a few things, but there are enough potential combinations of settings that I’m afraid it might take me a few weeks to get through every possible permutation of them. 
I think I’ve worked out the logic behind it now.
If I understand correctly: when I click on the link to a Scrivener text document from Scapple, it opens that document in a new editor, or the inactive editor if there are two.
The confusion I was having was when one editor was Locked in Place (as you say, when the header turns pink) and the other was Unlocked.
If the locked editor is selected, in the open Scrivener document, the Scapple link will open in the unlocked editor.
However, if the unlocked editor happens to be selected in Scrivener, then the link won’t open, because it is trying to open in the locked one.
I don’t suppose there’s an easy way around this, unless the link could automatically fall back to opening in any available unlocked editor.
Still, I think I worked it out in the end. 
Thanks again for your help,
Ian
Ah, I would never have noticed that myself because I use neither of the options you seem to be. For me, links load in the same split and when I lock a split, navigation doesn’t get redirected into the other split. So I’m used to stuff always loading where the focus is, and if that place is locked, nothing happens, precisely as I want—and so for me external links all work exactly how they should.
Well, even with different settings that make what you see expected behaviour, there is still the matter of perceived unreliability if the project is configured to a state where links are ignored. If you want a safe way to reference things, you can add “&view=qr” to the end of the URL, to cause the link to load as a Quick Reference panel.
There are other options as well (see Table 10.1 of the user manual), but I think that’s the only one that will avoid any uncertainty.
Well speaking as someone that uses settings that make it so the software only does what I tell it to, that would drive me nuts. I think a better solution is to handle it the way the software already does when you have this combination of settings, and you click on a link in one split, when the other split is locked: use Quick Reference.
Yes, that’s perfect for what I want: I am able to keep the editors locked and bring up research from Scapple. Perfect - thanks!
I don’t know why, but I couldn’t find a way to open the links in the same split. How do you achieve this? Whatever I seem to do it either creates a new split if there is only one open, or (if there are two open), opens in the inactive split.
Thanks again though, the Quick Reference panel option is perfect for my working routine.
Ian
Excellent, glad it’s working well now.
There are a bunch of link behaviour settings in the Behaviors: Document Links preference pane. It’s the first option that also impacts how external links work (the option I use is “Current editor”). I suppose you could even change that right there to QR and do without adding the bit to the URL—but then of course that is how all text links would work in Scrivener.
To be clear, if the locked split is active, then link will still not work because external links are not tapping into the redirect behaviour. All the above setting does it make it so the active split is what is tested for whether a link can be opened within it, rather than whichever split you are aren’t currently using.
Ah, that’s great - I hadn’t realised about that.
I’ll have to have a think about changing the link preference to QR. I don’t use many other links, so that could work really well.
Thanks again,
Ian