Location history navigation back/fwd

[Ferric]

Hi,

It would be really handy if there was a navigation back/fwd which navigated across document visited locations history, as found in VSCode and other programming IDE’s. (e.g it remembers row/col and document positions)

My preferred keyboard shortcut would be the same as the platform web browser, e.g. CMD- Left/Right on macOS.

Thanks

[Vincent_Vincent]

Hi Ferric. Welcome to the forum.

Windows shortcuts

You can change the shortcuts in the options:

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EDIT

Ok, my bad, I only realized after the fact that this is not quite what you are asking for.

So, as a meanwhile solution, here is how I do it (somewhat):

Design yourself a tag, something like [=LocTag], and drop it at points of interest.
You can have that tag in a document in your project bookmarks for quick access, where to copy-paste it from.

After that, all you have to do is search for it in the document of interest, using Edit / Find / Find...

You can remove those tags at compile either via replacement, or, if you design your tag with a character attributes style, via the styles panel of your compile format.

For the more elaborate version of this idea, see:

Link Specific Text from One Document to Another?

I’ve improved the method a bit… I redesigned it using a character attributes style. So that handles removing the location tags from compile if desired. It also takes care of the comments/footnotes issue in the simplest way, as well as operating outside of the inline annotations, allowing the location tags to be treated 100% apart from any other built in switches. Thus allowing to compile with inline annotations, comments, footnotes, while removing the tags that might serve no purpose in a compi…

[Ferric]

Hi, thanks for a fast response. I couldn’t find the Keyboard shortcuts settings on macOS.

[xiamenese]

@Vincent_Vincent

You can change the shortcuts in the options:

Sorry, Vincent; as @Ferric is on MacOS, that is irrelevant. The existing shortcuts are Cmd-[ and Cmd-]. If he should want to assign different shortcuts that is done through System Settings/Preferences (the latter term pre-Ventura) not from Scrivener Settings/Preferences.

Mark

[Ferric]

Thanks both, CMD [ & ] navigates, it’s not very accurate in terms of returning to the same cursor location but it works good enough.

[Vincent_Vincent]

Technically, the location should be as(where) it was when you left the document.
The cursor/selection that is, not the scroll necessarily.

For precise in-document navigation, you can, as I explained, mark your locations of interest manually.

[xiamenese]

For anyone on MacOS who’s not assigned shortcuts before, (I’m on MacOS 13.x and the screenshots are from that; if you’re on 12 or earlier, the UI is slightly different but the process is the same) here’s how you do it. But before you start, you need to check that the shortcut you want to use isn’t already assigned to something else; if it is, you’ll have to assign a different shortcut to that first

• Go to Apple → System Settings/Preferences and choose Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts:
  

  

• In the dialog that opens up, select App Shortcuts and then click the + icon:
  

• In the next dialog, click on All Applications and from the dropdown menu choose Scrivener; then enter the menu title exactly as it appears on the Scrivener menu; finally enter the shortcut you wish to assign.
  

Click Done and Done in the previous dialog, and that’s it.

Mark

[xiamenese]

If you have Scrivener → Settings → Appearance → Main Editor → Options → Highlight Current Line ticked on, that should make it easier to see where the cursor is. In my testing, it does take you back to the exact point where the cursor is in the document, and even though the cursor may be difficult to see, depending on your theme and your eyesight, you know the line where it is.

Obviously, navigation history doesn’t survive when you shut down, and I presume there is a limit to the number of entries in the history buffer(s), so if I need to go back to a specific point when I reopen a project, I usually add @@ in the text so I can search for it.

Mark

[fto]

@xiamenese

If you have Scrivener → Settings → Appearance → Main Editor → Options → Highlight Current Line ticked on, that should make it easier to see where the cursor is.

This is really useful. I did not know that. Thanks for the hint

[Ferric]

I’ve found it to sometimes be a whole page from where I left it (looking at, not cursor position). It would be nice is it went back to the same page scroll offset, it’s a bit jarring to me.

[Vincent_Vincent]

Windows:

Mac should logically have the same, somewhere.

If you redundantly, more often than not, wish to return to a specific spot within your document(s), either split them in smaller pieces (so the splice serves as a marker, kind of) or use a tag. “@@” as proposed @xiamenese should do the trick just fine. Quick to locate using Find...
You can even highlight that marker (@@), for your own eyes.
And set a replacement at compile, if needed for “as you progress” compiles, replacing it (@@) with nothing ; which will simply delete it from your output file.

[Ferric]

Indeed, but that’s not my use case, I don’t have anything selected nor want to have to.
For example, say I’m reading a page but I jump around to a 3 other documents in the binder, I would like to hit ‘back’ 3 times and be exactly at the same point on the initial page where I left off at the start without having to manually select anything, much like a web browser or IDE.

[Vincent_Vincent]

Yeah.
It has been discussed a couple of times.
You may search the forum, but I don’t recall any definitive solution.

By the way: you don’t need to have a selection for “Jump to selection” to work.
If no selection, it’ll take you to the cursor just the same.
Take habit of leaving the cursor where you want to return to, before navigating away. (?)