I am a professional television writer new-ish to Scrivener – trying to decide if I want
to add it to my workflow – I use the windows version.
The thing about scrivener that is attractive is that it provides me version control on the level
of scenes – this is a huge feature lacking in Final Draft and MMSW –
– I’m trying to edit in what used to be called “scrivenings mode” – I select the parent folder of
a bunch of scenes and then select “View–>Editor–>Lock in Place” to get a view on all of them in
contiguous order.
In the manual, it says I should be able to create new texts, and they would appear in this view…
but I can’t seem to figure out how to do this… I use CTRL-N to create a new text… it appears
in my binder but doesn’t appear in my editor… I click on the on the new text over in the binder
and the manual says that my insert point should move to that text… this works for texts that
existed before I locked my editor view but does not happen for ones created after locking…
…basically, the manual seems to imply that this locked view should update automatically with
changes, but as far as I can tell this does not happen.
Hello mscottveach,
Whilst your waiting for the knowledgeable answer my understanding is in scrivening mode you can edit and introduce new stuff as you see fit, it is all there for you to see and edit, but if you have “View–>Editor–>Lock in Place” activated then it clearly states that clicking in the binder or any attempt to change anything other than edit what is there will not work. That is the function of ‘lock in place’ as stated in the PDF manual. You do not need lock in place to work in the scrivening mode.
thanks for the reply; but i’m confused still a bit…
…when i’m in scrivenings mode, how can i add new texts without pulling me out of scrivenings
mode? ctrl-n takes me out of scrivenings mode unless i have lock-in-place activated… any clicking
on the binder takes me out as well…
…i realized that i was reading the mac os manual which is different than the windows in this
section… maybe it’s not possible to do what i want in the windows version…
Unfortunately, that was a planned capability that got pulled out of the short-term plans and is not yet implemented. Right now Scrivenings sessions are set up as you set them initially, and cannot be dynamically altered in place. This is an area for planned improvement, so have no fear, it isn’t cancelled, just delayed. The plans are to have container-based session dynamically responsive to the addition of elements within it (That means you can split a document and see two pop up immediately to replace the one; Ctrl-N adds a scene below the one you are working on). If elements are moved in the binder or another view, the change in order will be reflected in real time upon the session. If items are removed from the scope of the session (either deleted or simply moved out) they will be removed dynamically. Some of this would require locking the editor if manipulations are made in the binder, naturally, but as pointed out locking the editor is not a necessary ingredient toward having a session—it’s just necessary for keeping it. Basically anything you do in the binder to adjust structure will be immediately reflected in the session if necessary. Again, this only impacts container-based sessions. Sessions that are created by Shift/Ctrl-clicking items cannot respond to binder level changes since they are not bound to the binder in any way (they represent a meta-structure that does not exist outside of the selection).
If you’re reading the Mac manual you’ll probably come across other little things like this here and there. We’re taking a strategy of laying down broad strokes so that useful things like Collections and Scrivenings can be done immediately, then going back and filling in the cracks with the necessary grout, rather than implement every detail of every feature. Given how integrated the software is with itself (features helping features helping features), this would likely be impossible to do and still have a product available right now.