I group documents into Scrivenings “Group Mode” view something like 6x/hour.
How do I get RID of BOTH the lines AND the crop marks between sections (documents)?
I just spent an hour reading the manual and the forums and cannot find the answer.
Using Preferences, Formatting, Scrivenings, turn OFF “Separate scrivenings with single line break” just toggles back and forth between having Lines in the view vs. having Crop Marks in the view. I want get rid of both and have one seamless flow of text in Scrivenings view. Almost positive this was available back in 1.0, but the program seems to have changed a great deal and I don’t know how to deal with this.
Version 1 used alternating text background colors (white & very light grey by default). Now we have crop marks as the minimum, lines as the medium choice, and lines + titles as the largest delimiters of text. I felt it was a fair compromise for such flexibility, and am glad Keith made the change.
Anyway, you can stop looking for a way to get rid of the little brackets; there isn’t a way to do that.
You HAVE to be kidding me. The greatest writing program on the planet and there’s no way to instantly see the whole chapter displayed as a continuous flow of text without any extraneous marks?
Please someone tell me there’s a way around this. I cannot understand how/why this could have been designed and coded this way without offering the option of (1) crop marks, (2) lines, or (3) neither.
Compile is not an option. It takes too long. I don’t want to save, I don’t want to review options, I want an immediate preview.
Theories of insanity, drugs and evil intent aside, I suspect it’s because those tiny little marks are really not a big deal.
Given the reality of the situation (ie the existence of “crop marks”), I would suggest any of the following:
just don’t look at them.
spend ages procrastinating further by changing the color of your interface to precisely match the color of the brackets, thus making them invisible.
Compile the (relevant section of) document. It really doesn’t take that long to do and unless you’re writing explicit NSFW prose (or worse, “Twilight” fanfaction) and worried your Mum could walk in at any time.
Because ‘Neither’ would be a can of worms. It would get accidentally switched on, and we’d have no end of people not realising that they were editing ten files instead of one, and wondering why parts of their editor no longer work the way they expect. You might think that unlikely, but you’d be surprised how many options get toggled and forgotten about. If an option produces confusing results, like pretending ten files are one file, it is bound to cause additional burden in answering support messages (my backspace stopped working!).
I’m afraid I don’t quite follow what the problem is with the crop marks though. They are rendered in an unobtrusive grey, and they do not add any vertical space to the composite document.
Using the Scrivenings Group Mode display feature requires the following:
Select multiple documents (sections of a chapter).
That’s it! You’re done! You get the view in milliseconds.
However, using Compile to give you a quick view of documents requires the following:
Select multiple documents (sections of a chapter);
Option-Command-E;
;
Wait (for compiling);
Find and click on the PDF drop-down menu at the bottom left of OS X’s print menu;
Select and click on “Open PDF in Preview”.
Six times as many steps. (And all the proper Compile features have to be set up in advance to create the sort of tabula rasa background that is one of the main features of the Scrivenings view. These would have to be changed when you want to use Compile to create a manuscript type of view.)
In addition, it takes something like 100x the amount of time.
Really? How? It is HARD to find that setting. And in any case, not offering a feature because users might not be smart enough to know how to use it makes an implied assumption that their IQ and computer skills are lower than “X”. A real insult. And also completely incongruous considering the business model used for the design of Scrivener, since the program is very complex and powerful—that’s one of the reasons everyone loves it so much! It must have 100s of options for customization. So to turn around and say, “Oh, dear, our (power) users might get flummoxed by this.” The customer base IS power users!
This is actually a very good argument for offering crop marks/lines as an option. It does not, however, obviate the value of offering an option for the power user to turn both off.
I said nothing about intelligence, you are the one that made that association. I’ve mistakenly applied settings myself, and have had to go hunting for why the software is acting “weird”, sometimes even having to bother support over it. It’s annoying to have to do that, for both the user and the support staff, when there are more important things both parties could be doing.
I’m still confused over what is so offensive about the crop marks; they are barely visible, and you seem to be really wound up over this.
Confused? Confused!? Don’tcha know?
Because … well … it’s crackers to slip a rozzer the tipsy in snide! :mrgreen:
Errr … probably because they’re just … there!
OK, I’m over this. (Nothing like a good night’s sleep to put things into perspective.)
I still think the omission of a “neither” option is REALLY bad UI design, and a disservice to users. But whatever. I accept that I’ve been overruled by the community as well as the owner(s) of the company. I will embrace the evil crop marks, and move on. But I don’t like it.
Re one of pigfender’s remarks, I offer two arguments in an attempt to contextualize and rebut the slight on Mac OS: it’s obvious you haven’t coded in Unix for 25 years and therefore don’t fully understand the historical impact and value of Unix being ported as a base for NeXTSTEP code, which OS X and iOS are descendants of; in that brilliant move by Steve Jobs, he brought power, depth, strength, elegance, and complexity to OS X, in the aggregate a huge value.
This inane thread has given me high blood pressure, so I’m going to return to listening to Nine Inch Nails (and the awesome new “Welcome Oblivion” album by Trent and his wife), and now will get back to working on my new book (which gives me great joy, despite the intrusiveness of seeing crop marks in my face every day).
Cool! Although I should point out it wasn’t meant as a slight, it was a joke.
I neither “fully understand” nor (perhaps more importantly) do I care! This is about technology. I don’t care a one bit how important the Nokia Mobira carphone on the Cellnet network was in the 1980s and the impact those brave road warriors had in setting cellular technology on the path to iPhones. I care about whether my smartphone browser gets good reception, and whether Apple will let the software I want to use into the Appstore without requiring the crippling of functions.
EDIT: See the latest LitnLat blog post for just one example of the drawbacks of the App Store which will be a lot worse on iOS where the App Store is the only game in town.
Actually you only offered one, and to be truthful, that was on an entirely different subject (how great Steve Jobs was a few decades ago rather than whether or not Apple try to tell you what software is allowed to be used on your hardware).
I’ve already told you. That wasn’t incompetence, but a mixture of insanity, drug use and general evil intent!
NIИ! Man, They were really popular back in the '90s! Didn’t they form in 1988? Which is 25 years ago, back when you started coding in UNIX. Coincidence, or conspiracy?! 8)
Seriously, though. Don’t let a bit of gentle, friendly ribbing get the blood pressure up. We’re all good friends here and all want the software to be the best we can make it so I’m sure the company is grateful for the feedback and takes it in the manner in which it was intended.
Best of luck with the book. What are you writing? Fiction / Non-Fiction? Genre / Topic?
Thanks for asking about the book. It’s about depression, semi-autobiographical.
So probably a hundred authors have written and published on the subject. The Noonday Demon, etc. Whatever. I don’t know anyone who’s done a POV and referenced quantum particle physics to reflect the neuronal changes and existential and ontological parallels that arise from the condition (not to mention psychophysiological side effects of the horrific meds often prescribed, especially the benzo drug family). So here I am: writing it.
I figure: write what you know, make it simple, and self-publish on Amazon. I have too many Asperger traits for it to be easy to find a publisher, despite living in NYC and knowing a famous author on the rise (Jay Leno appearances, etc.). I’ll just self-promote—with a sledge hammer. Got too much other stuff going on (get healthy, find a job, etc.).
Yeah, NIN is “old” music maybe. I’m just getting around to reviewing their entire catalog and culling a kick ass playlist. The recent release of Trent’s wife’s album is very timely. Good stuff on “Goodbye Oblivion.” I tend to find a band, suck up their catalog, and spend months listening to a five- or six-hour playlist of their best stuff—daily, for months on end. (Earlier this year: Umphrey’s McGee; last year: Clutch.) I’m also a (somewhat) beginning drummer (only about five hundred hours of playing so far), and I’ve finally gotten to the level where I can play along with NIN and cope with the odd time signatures while still maintaining the “metal rock” authority required as a drummer for this type of material.
I’m getting used to your ribbing and jokes. They’re a good barometer to show me how uptight I am.
Sounds like a novel and interesting approach, and the fact that the writing process is giving you great joy will no doubt come across in the prose as well. Nice to hear from someone who wants to write rather than someone who wants to have written! Let me know when it’s out as I’d like to take a look.
As for old music, my R.E.M. fanboy status makes all other music geekeries look tame and acceptable.
This is actually an especially good procrastination if you are in the mood for such things… for the wonderful reason that as you change the background colour, the marks will also change colour allowing you to continue for as long as you’d like.
Unless you change to black, but then you’d need to have white text, and that’s just too retro for me.
