Hi there!
It would love you to fix this bug. I have this problem since I installed Scrivener 3 and so far none of the updates havedone the trick, so I thought, I’d post it here. It’s not that bad but quite annoying: When I insert a link to a document it often happens that text before or after the link becomes the link too (meaning it turns blue and I can click on it and get to the website). It often happens when I create a new paragraph, for example:
Text, Link, Text - I press enter
→ Text as Link, Link, Text as Link
I can undo it by marking the text, right click and remove the link but of course I would prefer it if it just didn’t happen in the first place.
Probably most people using Scrivener don’t have this problem because when you’re writing a novel it’s much more practical to use the references in the inspector, but I’m actually not only using Scrivener for creative writing but also for organizing my university stuff and my whole life in fact (so I have one project that contains my diary and a whole bunch of lists) and for this purpose I often insert links directly in the editor.
So, congratulations by the way that you managed to create a program that is not only perfect for its original purpose but also fantastic for a lot of other things that have to do with writing.
But it would be really great if you could fix this bug with the next update.
Thanks and have a nice day!
We’ve observed this behaviour when using links in bullet lists, under some conditions. Here is the thread for that.
If you aren’t using lists, perhaps the problem is more widespread? I had difficulty reproducing that one at first because it required a very precise sequence of events to trigger, so if you have another case, I may need a similar level of specificity. I don’t for example get any kind of link spreading by just typing, pasting a raw URL and then typing some more and pressing return into a fresh new binder item with nothing else in it.
I would note that disabling Automatically detect web addresses, in the Corrections options tab, would dodge the problem entirely. Whether making links by hand is more or less work than removing unintentional links after the fact is probably negligible though; depends on how often you see this happen vs how many links you add that you want to be clickable.
So, congratulations by the way that you managed to create a program that is not only perfect for its original purpose but also fantastic for a lot of other things that have to do with writing.
That’s easily explained by it being somewhat of a myth that Scrivener was made just for novelists. It was always meant to be a general purpose writing tool. 
Thanks for the kind words!
Interesting. I often use bullet points so it could be that it only happens then but I don’t remember. I’ll keep that in mind and take a closer look the next times. If it also happens when I don’t use bullet points, I’ll update here.
Oh, okay. xD But I must say the draft file in which you can only import text files and which you can’t delete seems preeeeetty novel-oriented. (I was quite confused a few times because I renamed the file, changed the icon and used it for example for one of my classes at university and suddenly noticed that I couldn’t import PDFs - now I got used to it and always keep the icon in order to remind myself that I can only use the file for text.)
All right, thanks! If you come up with anything happening outside of lists or around them, let me know.
The only other case I can think of is that sometimes pasting HTML raw from a browser can result in phantom links. The main culprit I’ve seen there aren’t actually links, but use of the anchor tag to create a link target.
That has more to do with misunderstanding the nature of the outlining model Scrivener is patterned after, I would say. Have you for instance tried putting your vector PDF into the text, instead of into the outline? If an outline row exists purely to display a figure or table, you can of course still do that, but you’d want to create an outline entry for it, and then put the object into its content area. Putting content into the outline itself is a bit counter to the notion of separating structure from content. Or let’s put it another way, in a “two-pane” outlining model such as Scrivener (setting aside it has more than two), where headlines are separated from content rather than displayed inline, the act of putting a PDF into the structure would be similarly illogical to putting a PDF into a Heading 2 styled paragraph in a word processor. I’m not speaking of outliers here (or publication level design choices), but as a general rule of thumb that one’s document structure and potentially formal headings will be text and not graphics.
I get the tendency though, and it is a bit of a grey area in terms of design clarity. As for not being able to delete the draft: it is a program that provides a platform for large-scale text assembly of any sort. Deleting the draft folder would be like deleting the pixel canvas from Photoshop. Now if you’re saying it makes Scrivener less of a general purpose note taking tool and more of a text production tool, well sure, I couldn’t disagree with that. Personally I think it is great for the former, even if you never need the draft output, but obviously that remains its primary purpose. I don’t see that as encouraging any particular form of writing though. A dissertation needs to be compiled too.
I’ve said it before, but if you look at all of the features Scrivener has that work toward a particular form of writing and count them up, non-fiction easily wins. Plethora options for endnote and footnote handling (including multi-stream which is unusual in writing software); multiple forms of linked image support for handling cases where material has a large quantity of illustrations that would bog the editor down; styles, in general, are mainly of interest to more complex document formatting; likewise all of the Markdown-based integration, which sure you can use for a novel, but most people looking for LaTeX output or similar technical format production probably aren’t writing short stories; extensive auto-numbering and referencing generation. Surely novelists would be fine with Chapter 12. They don’t need enough infrastructure to say, “Refer to Table 18.24 on page 272”. I could go on…
Meanwhile, look around for features made for writing novels. Best you’ll find are some naming conventions used in project templates, like calling a folder “Characters” and putting an icon of a mugshot on it. That’s not a feature though. Some might argue the Arrange by Label view closely resembles some workflows novelists use—but it also closely resembles a Kanban style task board, especially in vertical orientation, and that’s exactly how I use it some projects that have a lot of heavy workflow.
After non-fiction, I would say the workflow with the most dedicated feature support is scriptwriting, as they have a basic infrastructure for automated formatting in the editor (which incidentally can also be used for non-fiction purposes, like documentaries, interview transcriptions, etc.). While their compile support is less involved and feature-rich as Markdown-based compiling (never mind the other non-fiction support), there is still a good amount of special-purpose features in there.
I found out: It doesn’t only happen with bullet points. It could however be that it only happens if you have either a bullet point or put a blank line in. In the other thread someone wrote something about pressing Enter twice, that would fit. Still keeping my eyes open for other phenomena but for now I think that’s it.
Okay, I must confess, I didn’t understand everything you wrote, as English isn’t my first language and I don’t know that much about computers. But I think, one thing I can take away from it, is that Scrivener is designed for outlining. So my “problem” (as I already described, it isn’t really a problem) is because of that, not because of Scrivener being designd for writing novels. Because yes I did write my Bachelor dissertation with Scrivener but that wasn’t what I meant when I said that I use it for university. I mean that I have one project and there I have one folder for each semester and in those folders I have folders for my classes and I put (almost) all the materials I get in class in those folders and I write all my stuff in there, my notes, my homework, everything. And for that purpose, missing one overall project that needs outlining, the draft-thing is a little bit impractical.
So, I think I was right with the basic direction of my thought after all, Scrivener isn’t designed to do the things I do with it but it’s still great for it. (And it’s the only program I love. Other programs are there and I do things with them, some I like some I don’t like, but Scrivener I love.)
Nevertheless, I did think that Scrivener was designed for writing novels and I stand corrected regarding that, so thanks for your answers, it was really interesting reading them!
I am still not seeing examples outside of the reproduction list that we have, but I think that’s okay. It’s very likely that what you are seeing is the same thing.
I mean that I have one project and there I have one folder for each semester and in those folders I have folders for my classes and I put (almost) all the materials I get in class in those folders and I write all my stuff in there, my notes, my homework, everything. And for that purpose, missing one overall project that needs outlining, the draft-thing is a little bit impractical.
Yes, and Scrivener is quite good for that purpose! I wholeheartedly agree, there are other tools that are perhaps more aimed at that goal, but most of them have one thing or another I don’t care for in how they work—or maybe it is that I just really like outlines for taking notes as that seems like a natural interface for breaking down complex ideas, and there aren’t as many of those more dedicated tools that work like that. Most are flat list tools, where if they have grouping it’s a very strict thing more like a file system directory.
What sets Scrivener apart for me is its ability to take any part of the outline and treat it like a “document”, with Scrivenings view mode. It helps keep individual thoughts small and confined to their point, rather than becoming sprawling “files” that you end up having to scroll around in a lot. That is where things inevitable go in most other tools. There are a few exceptions out there, but most of them are way harder to use and learn than Scrivener, like Emacs org-mode and such.
It would be safe to say a fair number of my projects are like this, and I tend just drag the draft all the way down to the bottom and ignore it. It really doesn’t offer anything of practical use if I’m never going to compile.
Aargh. Yeah, with mine too. I don’t feel like tracking it down though. Thankfully it happens much less frequently than with bullets and hopefully that fix fixes it also
@AmberV , this reliably works. The text doesn’t turn blue, but it’s still clickable.
Paste this into a new document
Sunday, August 13, 2023 at 10:31 PM
https://subdomainhere.blogspot.com/2016/09/thepagetitle.html
Pokiop;fdlfldjf l;j
Lkhjfkidflkjdlkjhfljdflkf j
Lkhkhkllkhnlkfjdlkjn
Close project
Reopen and put cursor on last line (Lkhkhkllkhnlkfjdlkjn )
Press enter
Thank you! That works for me as well, I’ll get this added to the ticket so its scope can be broadened beyond lists.