Experience is a personal thing. But it may well be the old Windows vs Mac thing. As a user of both, I don’t like these hard-headed views. Reminds me of the old days when I wanted a right mouse (the reason which made me buy Windows), or the inferiority of INTEL (until Mac also began using INTEL.)
I favor a 2-way approach: Let the windows-users have their binder change if they want to (I do). But alas, guess what they told me in the Windows section?
There is no wishlist for Windows users. It’s a clone of the Mac-version. This may be why you guys here have to fight off all the invaders.
As robertdguthrie (I think) has already written in another thread, the aim as we understand it is to replicate the features of the Mac version on the Windows version, not necessarily the behaviour. After that? I assume the developer will want to make sure that knowing how to operate Scrivener on one platform will enable users to operate it easily on the other.
But whether that will be the case or not, generally, frankly, I trust the decisions of the developer - especially on an issue such as this. Those decisions, in my experience, have a track record that’s pretty damn wonderful. As he says, he doesn’t make decisions to satisfy every demand of the market-place. He makes them - mainly - to satisfy his own demands. That works for me (which is I why I personally am happy to fight off all the invaders ).
That’s correct, those were robertdguthrie’s words. I don’t quite grasp the distinction between the two. Is “Reveal in Binder” a feature or a behavior?
If its drill-down in the binder is permanent, is that the feature aspect, or the behavior part?
What about an editor window not remembering its associated binder view when I switch back? Is that a missing feature or an intended behavior that may get changed in Windows?
Where do I post feature/behavior suggestions for Windows? Here?
@Ahab
From my workflow experience, it is not an unreasonable demand, but I would like to hear what you are losing if an option were implemented that no one forces you to use?
I would guess so – but if you haven’t already done so it would be advisable to read the sticky thread “Before Posting …” first (something that nobody seems to do. Keith did once label a thread “Secret, do not read” which attracted a few hits, but it’s a hopeless task.)
I did read “Before posting”. And I do realize that this is not open source. And I am willing to take No for an answer.
“Polite” is what I found missing in some postings here. Instead, very insistent hardened views on an either-or approach. That’s why I threw in my two-cents about a third option. Well, not my idea, I stole it from other applications. This third option had not been posted before.
I am having a hard time orienting myself here in the forum. Searching yields way too many results, and sometimes I don’t know the correct term to search for. I wish there were a repository of known bugs, feature suggestions etc. It would have saved me a lot of time and frustration.
I am talking about the Windows section. The Mac section here seems much better structured. Like you suggested, I will post my stuff here.
I suppose “polite” will depend a lot on cultural background, age, and even linguistic ability. Having spent ten years of my life in another country I know how difficult it can be to express the subtleties in a foreign language, and I also eventually realised that I was occasionally being rude by not observing customs I was not aware of, while what I took to be rudeness in others was simply them not observing customs that did not exist in their country. And as I approach retirement age, I often find myself reflecting on the “informality” of younger people – it has its good and its bad points! Then again, some of the older members of this forum have “got to know each other” by now and occasionally take liberties with each other – have a look at the “Now for that latte …” section But sometimes we don’t make enough effort to recognise that our interlocutor is a human being with feelings of their own. I am often amazed by how impolite people are to Keith. If I were in his shoes, I would have given up the whole business years ago.
Scrivener was originally a Mac only application, of course, so the Windows section is a very new part of the forum. We “Maccers” have been hanging around here for several years (at least, the older ones) so it is not surprising if the Mac sections have a more settled air to them. No doubt the Windows section will settle down in time.
There is a knowledge base, but I don’t know if it applies to the Windows version:
Cheers (or perhaps, given my age, I ought to say “your humble servant” ) Martin.
Edit: by the way, if you think some of the replies here have been impolite, you should see some of the others that have been posted over the years. I’m glad to say that they have been very much the exception, but there have been some startling examples of narcissism at times.
This is, sadly, rather out of date even for the Mac version. We have just moved over to a new internal support system which will allow us to create a much better Knowledge Base repository, and one of our objectives this year is to build that up as a good source of easily-searchable information for both Mac and Windows users.
Regarding rudeness, I haven’t seen an awful lot of that in this thread, just differing opinions expressed strongly. Ioa gave an excellent explanation of why having the binder works - and should work - as it does, on the first page of this thread, to which I would refer users. I’ve already said that the behaviour is exactly as it should be and won’t change, so I don’t want to keep repeating myself.
As for “Reveal in Binder”, yes, that’s a feature, found under the View menu.
If there is no chance whatever of making the binder accurately reflect which pane is being edited, could there at least be an option to have the path show in the header bar (i.e., without having to click it to see it)?
A tooltip has been added to the header bar showing the path for the next update. And remember that opt-cmd-R will reveal your place in the binder immediately whenever you want.
All the best,
Keith
So, I’m a professional writer and I’ve been using Scrivener for almost 2 years. I love it and I use it for almost of my writing- freelance copywriting (scripts for TV ads, print ads, web sites, etc), journalism assignments, stage plays and screenplays. I use Scrivener, on average, 5 hours per day, 5 days per week. And yesterday, while frantically writing 12 different TV ads and trying to get them e-mailed out by an evening deadline, I discovered that I had accidentally deleted all of the images and most of the text for one of the ads. I did this because, after I wrote a script, I would duplicate it and use that version as the basis for a new and slightly different script. (This happens a lot with advertising. The client wants a 30 second version and a 15 second version. Or the client wants a version with a product insert for the bacon cheeseburger, a version with a product insert for the chicken sandwich, and also ten other versions for their ten other fast food offerings). Anyway, as I was frantically duplicating and writing and composing I lost track of which version I was editing and accidentally deleted a bunch of stuff that I then had to go back and frantically fix.
Yes, I should know better. Yes, as I was busily duplicating, navigating and composing I should have always remembered to double check my editor. But I was on a deadline, I was rushed, and these 12 scripts were merely the last dozen of another 64 similar scripts that I have written for this particular company over a two week period (all of which are in the same Scrivener project), so at some point I clicked in the wrong window and started typing without first double-checking to confirm where I was.
This thread has gotten bogged down in the binder highlight debate. We’ve been slogging out the pros and cons of how to manage the binder highlight. But I think that battle misses the point. The point is this: when you are managing a lot of similar documents, particularly when you are duplicating documents and using the split pane view, it’s very easy to lose track of what you are editing. Is there an elegant, simple, visual way to make this clearer? One that the user would be able to understand just by looking at the screen (not by having to remember to mouse over something or hot key something). Maybe there is not. It’s possible that, if I am editing 64 similar documents, I am simply destined to get confused. But if there is any way Scrivener could help me be less confused, I would certainly appreciate it.
Penny, I feel for you. I think how I would handle it with snapshots and labels assigning different colours, with the label colours showing in the binder.
I have been using Scrivener since 2007, working as a translation editor — it’s totally brilliant for that. I periodically have a stack of documents — not 64, I hasten to add, but probably rather longer than your ads — to edit against a tight deadline — China is “last-minute (dot) country”! — so, when I load the document(s) in, I immediately take a named snapshot “Original” and label it “New” with a white colour. I then have a series of labels for the different stages in the process, “In progress”, “Edited”, “Exported”, “Checked in Nisus”, “Sent” each of which has a progressively deeper shade of the same hue. I have another set of labels for “In progress”, “Re-edited”, “Re-exported”, “Re-checked” and “Re-sent” which use a different hue but similarly progressively deeper shades. This series is for use if the commissioner sends it back wanting changes — also typical here! I take an appropriately labelled snapshot at both the “edited” and “sent” stages as sometimes when I check it in NWP I pick up things which I missed in Scrivener so I make the changes and then paste back over the “Checked in Nisus” version, and if it is a long and complex document I’ll take snapshots during the editing process.
This is not a final solution to your “where are you in the binder” issue. You’d still need your “Reveal in Binder” keystroke, but it helps to see that you’re editing a text that is meant to be in the process of editing, not one that is complete. And the snapshots are essential, in that if you should start working on the wrong one, you can copy the changes you’ve made, roll it back to where it was at snapshot time, go to the right one and paste in your changes.
Not a final solution, but I hope this may give you a basis on which you can build a system that would suit your work.
Now, if Keith were able to make it so that the active document header could take on the label colour of the document … hope, hope …
).
But sometimes we don’t make enough effort to recognise that our interlocutor is a human being with feelings of their own. I am often amazed by how impolite people are to Keith. If I were in his shoes, I would have given up the whole business years ago.
— so, when I load the document(s) in, I immediately take a named snapshot “Original” and label it “New” with a white colour. I then have a series of labels for the different stages in the process, “In progress”, “Edited”, “Exported”, “Checked in Nisus”, “Sent” each of which has a progressively deeper shade of the same hue. I have another set of labels for “In progress”, “Re-edited”, “Re-exported”, “Re-checked” and “Re-sent” which use a different hue but similarly progressively deeper shades. This series is for use if the commissioner sends it back wanting changes — also typical here! I take an appropriately labelled snapshot at both the “edited” and “sent” stages as sometimes when I check it in NWP I pick up things which I missed in Scrivener so I make the changes and then paste back over the “Checked in Nisus” version, and if it is a long and complex document I’ll take snapshots during the editing process.