My own mash note...

[werebear]

Dang! Every writing session I get a crush on a feature that sends me to bed late.

The other night, it was typewriter scrolling. I kept murmuring, “Man, this is so cool.” And after falling in love with Scrivener in its multi-window state, of late I have found myself even more enamored of the full screen option.

Perhaps those with writing sinews of iron can ignore the siren call of Safari lurking in their dock as they write, but for me, full screen mode is wonderful for focusing on the task at hand. Not to mention the way you can see so much of the work as you work on it.

I started with word processing on the Vic 20. It was good for two things; playing Sword of Fargoal (the parties would last all day as everyone took turns – the long wait for the program to be loaded from cassette tape would be spenting making food and drink) and the Name I’ve Forgotten word processor that broke all text into 256 character chunks and was only assembled in sensible form when you printed it out on a dot matrix printer. Oh, children, what we managed with back in the day. (Pause for whittling.)

I have long been a fan of the “little program” that is for writers, not typesetters. I typed in reams of machine code back in my Commodore 64 days, getting in return the word processor SpeedScript, written by a writer.

My love for SpeedScript was only superseded when the Amiga came out, and I adored both ProWrite and Flow, becoming a beta tester and civilian brainstormer for the company. So it was also written by a writer.

And now, the Amiga long gone and still lamented, I have switched to the Mac, to be rewarded by Scrivener. Written by a writer.

Truly a 21st century writing program. The writerly features are so evident; the full screen mode, the alt-shift highlighting word by word, the dragging to the binder that creates a new chapter.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

I have been vindicated in my choice to go with the Mac instead of the PC. Not that it was in any doubt. But while the Amiga still makes my geek heart go pitty-pat, there was no real doubt about my choice. Macs have been, and still are, despite it all, made with love.

As was Scrivener. My love back to you! In a geeky, code jockey, sort of way.

[KB]

Wow. Thank you.

[tim]

werebear,

Perhaps those with writing sinews of iron can ignore the siren call of Safari lurking
in their dock as they write, but for me, full screen mode is wonderful for focusing
on the task at hand. Not to mention the way you can see so much of the work
as you work on it.

If you’re interested in working both in fullscreen mode and seeing all your Scriv docs, notes,
and other material, try Think http://www.freverse.com/think, a brilliant little app that’ll give
you the best of both worlds.

Tim

[howarth]

That URL should be freeverse.com/think/

[tim]

Damn. I’m always dropping my e’s.

Thanks, Howarth.

[veshman]

Tim,

I also noticed that the scratchpad floats on top of fullscreen mode.

I was actually doing a search on fullscreen mode because I wanted to be able to be working fullscreen, but I also wanted to be able to refer to an outline.

Thanks for the link to Freeverse. I will try that out to see how it works, but definitely a quick and built in way seems to be using the scratch pad.

It would be great if the Scratchpad could be a dark translucent window, like in Papers - mekentosj.com/papers/

bhavesh

[KB]

It would be great if the Scratchpad could be a dark translucent window, like in Papers

Funny, I can’t even see a scratch pad in Papers. They have an Info panel and a Notes panel, equivalent to the Inspector (notes) and keywords panels available in Scrivener. In fact, it may even be that the Papers guys took a look at Scrivener’s full screen mode. I may be wrong - they may have just based it on iPhoto like I did, but there is a definite similarity. (I like Papers - nice app.)

Anyway, not every panel can be translucent and black, as cool as it may be. Floating panels such as the scratch pad - that is, panels that can hover over all windows - are traditionally standard Aqua panels with a thin toolbar.

Best,
Keith

[veshman]

keith,

actually, I meant the “notes” in Papers fullscreen mode. I found it really easy to have a PDF very large and be able to take notes in the translucent window.

I figured the reverse would be true as well. Type a draft while having some notes or an outline to refer to. Still serves the purpose of of blocking stuff out, but allow you to refer to something (useful for less than creative work).

The scratchpad works great for this. But it sort of stands out on my screen.

[KB]

But the scratch pad isn’t really intended for this… The scratch pad is more the sort of thing you would have open while browsing other applications and taking notes, or copying and pasting things into it. That is really what the scratch pad was designed for. In full screen mode, to make notes on a document, you would use the notes & keywords (“inspector”) panel, available from the bar that appears when you place your mouse at the bottom of the screen. That is a translucent window…
Best,
Keith

[veshman]

hmm…

i guess the way it works for me is that I’m putting all the research i need in the research folder and then I use the split screen feature. but if I want to type full screen, then there is no way to access the research.

so then I just copy and paste what i need out of research, or write an outline so i know what is before the current piece and after so that I can keep the topic sort of confined.

bhavesh

[KB]

But what’s the difference between copying it into the sratch pad and copying into the document’s notes?

[howarth]

Not to sound like a broken record, but this is where I find a second program, like DevonNote, to be so handy as support for the writing environment of Scrivener. In DN I can store research notes, whether they be whole files or just paragraphs and sentences. I can store URLs that bring up texts of books, articles, dictionaries, etc. PDFs as well, though the other DT products do a better job of parsing them. So I keep a DN window open on one side of the screen and Scrivener on the other. I prefer to write in the non-full screen mode, though I could use that and just put the opacity at a lower rate. Sure, you can store notes in the Research folder, but split screen reduces the view of the draft. If you are concerned about costs, DN is less than 20 dollars. So it makes a good companion to Scrivener.

[veshman]

kb,

2 things.

1. i thought notes were document specific. so if i changed documents i would change notes. that doesn’t work if i’m holding an outline i might want to use for several documents.

2. i didn’t know you could type notes before you go into full screen mode. i might be copying from several sources before i go into writing mode.

howarth – i actually own devonthink and devonagent and i like them both. i haven’t fully developed my workflow, but so far, i’m just sort of collecting everything I might want to keep and look at later into DevonThink. So almost all the research I do goes into devonthink. But when I am ready to start the project, i put the bits and pieces i might want to actually use from DevonThink (or other sources) into the research folder of scrivener. I don’t use DevonNote, but I thought that was like devonthink Lite.

for me, i already know the structure of the final document, and I emulate that in that in the research folder. then, when I am ready to create the draft, the research folder already has the structure and relevant research ready to go.

I wish I was writing a novel or pursuing some creative task, but this is what i do … for now

bhavesh

[KB]

1. i thought notes were document specific. so if i changed documents i would change notes. that doesn’t work if i’m holding an outline i might want to use for several documents.

I’m hoping to make project notes available in full screen for 1.04, which should resolve this.

All the best,
Keith

[veshman]

keith

that will work fine!
bhavesh