HI, I imported a document from the desktop to the project reference pane in the Inspector. When I moved the original document to a folder, it would not open in the project reference pane. When I returned it to the desktop it would open. In order to have the document in my may document folder on the Mac, I had to recreate it and save it there. It seems a shame that we can’t move documents without losing the capacity to open them in the project reference pane.
Scrivener just saves the path to the original file. Obviously if you move it, Scrivener won’t know where it is, as it’s not a mind-reader. Scrivener would need to be constantly monitoring actions on your file system to know that you’ve moved things, and that would not be pretty.
All the best,
Keith
This is why I’ve cultivated the habit of importing documents & web pages instead of linking to them. I’ve got projects that are over two years old that I mean to get back to one of these days. Since I import all of my reference material, I don’t have to worry that the web page or external document has changed or moved.
And you can always import a document and store a link to it’s original location, just in case you want to compare what you originally read to what is out there now (assuming it hasn’t moved/been deleted).
And on the flip-side of Robert’s thoughts, this is why I’ve cultivated the habit of never moving stuff around once it has been “archived”. To me, the hierarchy design of how I arrange things into folders is sacrosanct, and deadly simple so as to resist the need to manipulate it. A few big topic categories (under six if possible) and then year/month folders beneath each of those is a good example of something easy that doesn’t need to move around.
Importing is great; but if you can get by with referencing that’s even better because it keeps your project trim and efficient to back-up. You can now load disk references in splits, too, removing one of the single biggest reasons for importing in the past.
I do archive off the web though in plain text, not webarchive. The web is out of my control and changes all of the time, so for any form of long-term storage of text, it makes sense to bring it in, and doing so as simple text is lightweight and useful in Scrivener.