Moving Full Screen Combinations to the View Menu

Scrivener Wish List
1

There’s an interesting article in the Seattle Times:

seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l … lor06.html

Here’s a summary:

"If a new study is any guide, the color red can make people’s work more accurate, but blue can make people more creative. In the study, published online Thursday [2/5/09] in the journal Science, researchers at the University of British Columbia conducted tests with 600 people to see how cognitive performance varies when people see red or blue… Red groups did better on tests of recall and attention to detail, such as remembering words or checking spelling and punctuation. Blue groups did better on tests requiring invention and imagination: coming up with creative uses for a brick or creating toys from collections of shapes. “If you’re talking about wanting enhanced memory for something like proofreading skills, then a red color should be used,” said Juliet Zhu, an assistant professor of marketing at the university’s business school, who conducted the studies with Ravi Mehta, a doctoral student.

For writers, that suggests that writing with a blue background would free our minds up to be more creative, while a red background would stimulate just enough fear to make proofing more accurate.

That brings up my #1 suggestion for Scrivener 2.0. Currently, the colors used in Full Screen mode are set in Preferences-Full Screen. That’d be OK if users want to have one set of preferences for all time. But some of us don’t like to work that way. We like to change the color combinations depending on our mood, lighting and purpose. Unfortunately, not only is it a hassle to change those combinations through Preferences, when we change to a different color combinations, other preferences get changed at the same time. Full screen preference files seem to store more than just Full Screen color combinations.

I’d suggest that what’s now in in the Preference-Full Screen pane become a selection under the View menu called “Full Screen Display” and placed just before “PDF Display.” Users could quickly select from preexisting combinations or create a new combination. It’d be quick, simple, and wouldn’t alter anything else. It might also be helpful to put those same choices as a pull-down menu in the pop-up menu bar in full screen mode. (Preferences could still set the default combination.)

The ability to tweak Full Screen mode color combinations in a flash would also impress those who’re considering adopting Scrivener.

2

So I wonder if a blue background and red text would be a good combo? Hrmm, interesting study though.

3

You are correct, the preference saving and loading engine is for all preferences, not just the section you are currently looking at.

I do agree with you on the notion of flexibility and making that something you can store a few named options off of a menu. I find myself rotating through colour choices depending upon the season, largely, and my mood. I never realised it until a few months ago, when I noticed that I was using richer, warm earth tones in the autumn, and then as soon as it snowed I changed my colours to cool “blueprint” light blue on dark blue. In the summer I tend toward warm toned greys with black text. Spring is all over the place. Fuchsia!

The question is, do I ever come back to the same choices, or as the years progress, do I keep choosing different colours within a similar motif? Obviously they are not identical, but I don’t think I ever return precisely the same combinations over and over. Granted, others might, but I wonder if the current system allows the mind to more freely express itself.

4

I, Le D, naturally tend to wallow in a black background utilising a black Halloween font.
Le D :smiling_imp: