Keith:
Possible to make the background of the Document/Project notes section lined, like the notecards? I have no idea why I want this, other than I like the metaphor of having a “notebook” to my right as I work.
Is this something I can do myself?
Thanks,
Sean
It’s a nice idea (by strange coincidence I even thought about it yesterday), but the trouble is that the text in the main document area and in the notes area is rich text, whereas the text in the index card view is plain text. Rich text could have text of different sizes and fonts on the same line, which makes it more difficult to calculate the line height. This means you would either have some very bizarre-looking lined paper (different line heights for every line) or that you would have lines whose height was based on the first character in the text view (or typing attributes), so that anything typed in a different font/size would not be on the line (if you look at Word’s note book view, text only stays on the line if you stick to the default font)…
Best,
Keith
Ah. Makes sense. (And thank you, as always, for the quick response!)
I tend to keep my notes in one font/size, so lines that would key off my first letter of text wouldn’t be such a bad thing – I can see how it might open an unwelcome can of worms. One of those features that necessitates more developer support (“Why don’t my notes stay on the line?” etc.) than benefit.
Still, it’d look cool.
Oh, you meant the notes area, not the main text… Oh well.
Please. Please. Please. I have kids to offer.
Not sure why I like this so much. I normally dislike the lines.
I have to agree. That is a very sexy screenshot. Normally when an application presents ruled “paper” to me, I’m frantically pounding through preferences trying to turn it off—but that looks good. I think it is the slate background and subtle paper edge. It is properly framed, rather than just being a window edge to edge “sheet of paper.”
Actually, messing around with this, I really like it. The lines will be of varying sizes if you use multiple fonts or paragraph spacing, but I think that’s better than having the text go across the lines etc… Any suggestions for a keyboard shortcut? This should really be a toggle on/off thing (per-document?).
Best,
Keith
Wow. I like that a lot! And you could do that for the notes section too, yes?
Note: I’d love to be able to toggle it on and off, yes – and to be able to use it in notes-only mode (so the main window is a “blank page” and the notes look like a notebook).
Cmd-Ctrl-L looks free.
I have a feeling cmd-ctrl-L is an odd one. It doesn’t beep when you hit it, whereas key-combos that do nothing should beep. I have a feeling I tried it before and it did nothing - although I haven’t tried again…
If the notes area supports lines as well, I think that should be a preference whereas document notes should be a toggle in a menu. I think you are more like to want to toggle it for the main document, whereas you are probably going to want a more permanent setting for the document notes.
Thoughts?
Best,
Keith
Absolutely!
And, I mean, come on… how good would my Scriv window look if lines were added to the notes on the right?
Yes to lined background in notes section–both for document and project–as a preference.
Mmmm. Ok to lined background in main section that is toggled. I might not use it for main writing sections, but would for character development/locale description/etc. pages, written in Scrivener, housed in binder research section.
I think both these ideas (lined documents set by a hot key and lined notes set by a preference) sound cool and the screenshot mockup looks great.
Lined notes? As if they were printouts from one of my very own notebooks, only legible?
As Claudius says, “Do it, England.”
No, wait, that’s when he’s setting Hamlet up to be killed.
Anyway, sounds good.
Like Jaysen, I have children to offer. Mine, however, are in their thirties and forties, so might rebel against being shipped off to pay for their father’s conceits.
One of my neighbors has a cat I’d dearly love to ship off. Interested? I know a guy who specializes in non-destructive trapping, and one of my brothers used to work in Customs, so he’d know how to slip the little beggar through, and the Homeland Security people locally are a joke (not that that in any substantial way distinguishes them from HS personnel I’ve encountered at half a dozen other airports) and will content themselves merely with asking the cat to take off its shoes so they can…
This begins to sound like a plot to get rid of the goddam cat, doesn’t it.
Ah well, the more we write, the more we give ourselves away. In every sense of the phrase.
Still, the lines look neat. I like them.
Phil
What mockup? 
That is the thing in action. Given that I already had the code for lines for the index card view, it didn’t take much to add it - there are just some refinements to make, now (some blurriness on lines after a few pages, for some reason).
As for cats and kids - I already have a cat that wakes me in the middle of the night and two kids that wake me early in the morning. So, I’m good, but, y’know, thanks.
Best,
Keith
Fluff
yes yes yes yes YES YESSSSS
I’ll have what they’re having. The ability to see at a glance whether a document is notes or actual ‘writing’ would be invaluable. Turn it on/off at document level, too: excellent.
I’d like to add my ‘Yes!’ to this, especially for the notes section.
I prefer to do my notes in bullet points - don’t know why, it works for me. While it’s probably going to be a long time before Apple improves the text system so I can turn bullets on & off with ah shortcut, in the meantime having lined notepaper in the inspector is both pretty and useful for the purpose 
‘pretend’ bullet points with asterisks look a lot more like a bulleted list when they’re on lined notepaper.
A little tip, y•u can fabricate y•ur •wn genuine bullet-p•ints by pressing Opt-8 instead •f Shift-8. They l••k nicer.
