[LH2845] 2.9.0.4 - Notes written in the Manuscript folder keep disappearing

Scrivener Windows Beta (Archived)
1

For testing purposes, I’m writing a new draft of one of my books in Scrivener 3 Beta (making sure to back up frequently, of course.) In an earlier draft of this work, I made frequent use of the Project Notes feature, to track changes I need to make throughout the draft.

I used to be able to switch between Project Notes and Document Notes for whichever item I had open, but now Project Notes seem to be relegated to the default “Manuscript” item in my Binder.

I guess that’s fine, since the Beta did warn me that Project Notes had been changed, and would be backed up in a Binder folder when my project was converted. Switching between the Notes and Bookmarks tab to check my notes is sort of clunky, though. It’d be useful if we could customize the Inspector’s layout.

But before then, there’s a bug to report. I had entered a few notes into the Manuscript notes, and when I closed the project and opened it again, they were all gone. The notes on the other items are fine, but the Manuscript notes, presumably meant to replace Project Notes, have disappeared.

When I entered notes into my other items, like folders and texts, a little dot appeared next to my Notes icon, indicating something was changed. No such dot appeared in the Manuscript notes, so presumably, it hasn’t saved them.

Is this Notes section a deprecated feature that will be removed soon? I noticed my backed-up notes have appeared in Project Bookmarks: is that the replacement for Project Notes? Will Manuscript notes be used for something else?

2

I’m not sure whether it’s fully been implemented in the Windows Beta yet, but presumably it’s going to work the same was as the Mac.

As you say, the way Project Notes and Document Notes works has changed. Now you have Bookmarks, which are really just standard documents in the Binder — as you can see from the ones that were created in the conversion. When you attach a Bookmark to a document in the Inspector, that Bookmark is linked with the document and can be directly viewed from it in the Inspector or in a Quick Reference window. The Bookmark Inspector panel is a toggle between Project and Document Bookmarks.

There’s only really one difference between Project Bookmarks and Document Bookmarks now: if you designate a document to be a Project Bookmark it will automatically be linked to every other document and folder in the the binder. But Document Bookmarks only appear in the documents which you have explicitly chosen. Obviously, when you invoke the Project Bookmarks HUD (Project > Show Project Bookmarks) you’ll only see the Project wide Bookmarks.

An example: you want your notes on the weather conditions on the Planet Zog to be easily available from every other document in the Binder, so you’d make it a Project Bookmark. But the character notes for Mingo the Magnificent only need to be available in the scenes in which he (she? it?) appears, so you’d attach the character notes to those scenes as a Document Bookmark.

It doesn’t make sense for Document Bookmarks to be attached to the top level Manuscript folder, so that’s why you only see the Project Bookmarks there.

As for Notes… They’re different from Bookmarks (they always have been, TBF.)

Notes are specifically related to individual documents, Bookmarks are for information that you want to be accessible from anywhere else in the binder (either everywhere or just for specific documents as discussed above). To extend the analogy: your ideas for the scene in which Ming the Magnificent is eaten by the Evil Postman would be in the Inspector Notes panel, not in a Bookmark.

If your notes from the Manuscript folder have been backed up to the Project Bookmarks folder, then that’s working fine. Right click on it and select ‘Add to Project Bookmarks’ to make sure, then Project > Show Project Bookmarks and you should see them appear in the Project Bookmarks HUD.

There’s more to Bookmarks than this (is the Tutorial ready for the Beta yet — it should explain the ins and outs), but hopefully that answers the basic questions.

3

“Project bookmarks” are not tied to the Manuscript folder. Select the Research folder, and the project bookmarks will remain visible. Select any document in any folder, and you’ll still have project bookmarks visible in the inspector. If they’re not remaining visible in the inspector as you navigate the binder, then that’s a bug.

Again, that’s because the project notes are ‘global’–they’re not tied to any item in the binder at all.

There is no such thing as a “project notes” feature anymore. Instead, you can just create a document (or multiple documents) anywhere in the binder, and drag it/them into the project bookmarks. Now that document is available in the inspector whenever you’re viewing project bookmarks, and they’re also available in the binder.

Document Notes are different, and will remain a feature as far as I’m aware, but there’s no such built-in analogue for the entire project. Likewise, document bookmarks, being tied to a particular document, will cause the asterisk to appear next to the bookmark icon in the inspector if you have any for that document.

Also note; you can add web URLs and links to external documents to project bookmarks and document bookmarks. Those external links won’t show in the binder; only in the bookmarks pane of the inspector.

4

There’s a bug that’s causing some of this confusion: The Draft (renamed Manuscript in your project, it sounds like), Research, and Trash folders should only be displaying project bookmarks in the inspector, no other tabs. None of these special folders can have text or notes of their own, so that the notes pane in the inspector is available is a bug. Text typed there isn’t saved because the file doesn’t exist. Until the bug is fixed, avoid typing in that pane when it’s loaded for any of these three folders. Normally you should see a “Synopsis” area above the notes (even if it’s collapsed, you’ll still see the “Synopsis” title), so if that’s not there, don’t type in the notes field.

This has no bearing on existing document notes or project notes from an upgraded project. Document notes remain as before, in the notes field in the inspector associated with each item. 1.x also did not allow document notes for any of the three special folders, so there is no change there, except that in the earlier version the inspector would switch to showing “project notes” instead of “document notes” if you had these folders loaded. That should be happening now in the sense that the inspector should show “Project Bookmarks”, which is where the erstwhile Project Notes are now stored.

As the other posters have shared, Project Notes are now stored as regular documents in your binder, so they are much more accessible and useful than previously, when they could only be accessed in the inspector or special project notes pad that was fairly disassociated from the rest of the project. Project Bookmarks combines the old project notes and project references features, allowing you to store a list of internal or external items and view them in the bookmarks editor in the inspector; you can also open the project bookmarks list in a separate window or as a sidebar in the new Quick Reference windows, which lets you view them similarly to the floating Project Notes window in 1.x.

Any project notes from your 1.x project would have been put into a new “Project Notes” folder at the bottom of your binder during the upgrade to 3.0, and they would also also have been automatically added to the Project Bookmarks list. Click the bookmark icon in the inspector or Navigate > Inspect > Bookmarks to load the bookmarks in the inspector, and click in the “Document Bookmarks” or “Project Bookmarks” header to switch between the two. This is similar to document and project references in 1.x–document bookmarks are specific to the document focused in the editor; project bookmarks are visible no matter what you have open. 1.x project notes become project bookmarks in 3.0.

Clicking the red bookmark icon on the main toolbar or Project > Project Bookmarks… will open the floating window with the list of project bookmarks, and you can click the icon in the lower right (arrow pointing out of a box) to expand it into a Quick Reference window with the bookmarks open in the sidebar. Clicking the bookmarks in the sidebar will open it in the Quick Reference window. You can also go the other way–if you have a Quick Reference window open, clicking the bookmark icon in lower left will open the sidebar.

5

I had this question about Notes as well, so thanks for the clarification. I hadn’t used it much, I mostly use the notes section on each chapter/scene, so thankfully it wasn’t too much of a nuisance.

Was Draft not supposed to be renamed to Manuscript in S3? Mine is listed as Manuscript as well.

6

Depends on the project template you used?

:slight_smile:

Mark