Hello! Random thoughts here. I’ve been a Scrivener user since way back on version 1 in 2008 or so, I love it, there are just a few things I wish it could do. (Some I’m sure specific to me so probably not worth developer time, though hey, you never know…)
Export snapshot comparison view
Usecase 1: There have been a lot of conversations about AI over the last couple of years, and more recently about how writers can prove they did the writing and revision on their work themselves. Showing a version of the work with tracked changes is one suggestion I’ve seen a lot. Scrivener doesn’t have a 1:1 with Word’s or gdocs’ track changes function, but when you use comparison in snapshots you can see what was changed. Would it be possible to export that view so there’s a track-changes-esque version writers can share ?
Usecase 2: Editors and agents will send feedback to authors, and again, may want to see a version with changes tracked so they can see exactly where and how authors addressed their notes. Currently, writers have to do that in Word… which is what they’re trying to avoid by using Scrivener, lol. So again, exporting a version of the comparison view in snapshots could help.
(Note: I do use revision colors, which I like a lot! But other members of my writing group find the colors distracting, which is fair. It also only shows additions, not deletions, so I don’t think it fully matches the use cases here.)
Option to roll up document synopses to the folder level
Usecase: Writers may have scene-level documents (each with a synopsis) that are placed into folders for chapters or sections. When you view in outliner mode, you have to expand every folder to see the synopses of the scenes within. When you view in corkboard mode, you can’t see the synopses within those at all unless you’ve expanded and selected them in the binder. Rather than doing all that expanding and selecting, would it be possible to have an option to show the synopses for all contents on a folder when the folder is viewed? Similar to how you can view “Total Words” in the outliner to see the wordcount for the content within each folder.
Customize where in the inspector to view metadata
A long shot, I’m sure.
Usecase: currently when you view the inspector, the first pane has the synopsis and notes; the third pane has custom metadata and keywords. That means that if I’m working on a revision where I want to be able to see notes and any custom metadata (which I use to track timelines and what exposition is placed in a given scene), I have to switch between panes frequently, which is mildly annoying. I’d love to have that all in one view but I’m sure other people use it differently, so given that, I’d love to be able to define what metadata shows up on that first pane.
Bonus: please please please can I get standard text formatting in the Text type metadata? Having to remember to hit option+enter for a new line is also a huge annoyance.