One of the things I love about Scrivener is that I can write small chunks of text and then be able to look at them in different contexts, move them around at will etc.
So, when I’m writing, I frequently click cmd>N to create a new “chunk”. Doing that, though, I’m sent back to the binder, to name the new file, and only after having done that (or gone back to the editor without naming the file) I can go back to writing. I’d much rather just press cmd>N, and go on writing. Is there a way to achieve that?
Use it all the time. Suppose that’s what I have to rely on, post factum. But to me that’s a first stage in editing, not what I want to do while I’m in the writing “flow”. Then I just want to press cmd>N and continue writing.
if you press cmd-k it will create a new document and your cursor will be in the new document. In the binder the name of the newly created document will be <old_name>-1 (the number will be incremented). That’s how I do it when I know I’m starting a new idea.
I find it best to start the “clean sheet” in a place not part of my draft. But I’m different that way.
Curioser and curioser … If I’m at the end of the last line in a document cmd-k does nothing — which makes sense in a way. If there is no text after the insertion point, there is nothing to split.
Only if I start writing what I would like to write in a new document in the “old” document, move the insertion point to where I want the new page to begin, press cmd-k and then move the insertion point to the end of the text in the new document, can I continue writing.
I suppose I could then just as well press cmd-n when I want a new document, and then ctrl-tab to move focus from the binder to the the editor and start writing. I’d much prefer if I’d stay where I were after pressing cmd-n, i.e. in the editor if I press the command while focus is in a document and in the binder if focus is on the binder.
As an aside: In the dropdown menu Documents>Split> the alternative “at Selection” is greyed out if there is no text after the insertion point — which makes sense considering the above. But it is also grayed out if there is a selection, which makes less sense considering the menu wording. The command should logically be Split>at Insertion Point.
Well. I just fired it up and realized that the very first thing I do after starting a new document it
Hit enter
Hit up arrow
Which puts one blank line after my cursor. It’s an unconscious thing from my code writing days. I bet you could set the new document template to have a blank line.
I think that is something I could get mentally used to, with a little tweak. Usually when I want to split and continue in a new document is in places where I would otherwise insert a blank line. So I could try to make a habit to insert the line and hit the up arrow before hitting cmd-k. If I do many splits like that there will be some blank lines in the bottom, but they are easily deleted once the flow has ebbed and the dreary editing commences.
But you don’t actually need to add a new blank line every time you want to cmd-k, for once you do this trick once, the blank line at the end of the document gets moved to the new document when you split! As long as you don’t arrow-down or click down past it, you will always be good to go for more cmd-k splits going forward. Just write on!
If the binder is hidden, Cmd-N in the editor will create a new document and keep focus in the editor. So you could just use Opt-Cmd-B to hide the binder when you begin writing and carry on from there.