Exists in the binder like the Resources Folder but is present accross all projects assigned to the current author. Contents of the Author Folder are editable and remain updated no matter which of the current projects are currently displayed. Author can populate that folder with any files or folders or links or media or documents that they wish to be accessible regardless of the project they are presently working within. I’d also like it if there was a Community Folder or section where the author could invite collaboration with various levels of editing and viewing permissions to individual team members.
Hello Randall, are you perhaps looking for something like the Shared Templates folder, which is discussed in Section 7.5.3 of the Scrivener manual?
That might help you accomplish some of the items you’ve outlined in the first part of your wish-list post.
As for a community folder where an author can allow some editing, you might review the Synchronized Folders discussed in Section 14.3 of the manual. A PDF of the manual is available via Scrivener’s Help menu.
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Does the “Shared Templates folder” always present the same author created content no matter what project is open? Is it shared across documents within one project or is it’s contents shared across projects? The documentation (Scrivener Manual PDF) doesn’t make this clear.
Hello Randall,
That folder can contain documents that you want shared across all of your Scrivener projects. The materials available in it will be limited to the file types that Scrivener can import.
Our Head of Support discussed this in a bit more detail in this earlier post.
Does that answer your question?
I am going to try this out, (and report ack to this thread), but from my experience, the Shared Templates folder brings with it a set of automated scrivener behaviors that attempts to assign special status to all documents within that folder, attaching yet more behavior regarding the automation of Scrivener’s “template” functionality. Template functionality is useful and very much appreciated. But template behavior does not at all encompass all of the types of documents, metadata, links, preferences, sharing permissions, behaviors, and data I wish to share accross projects.
Hello Randall,
As the manual notes, that folder will not work for items like metadata or to set up the editor in a specific way.
The shared templates folder is exactly what its name says it is: A folder for sharing any files that are valid to be imported into Scrivener between multiple Scrivener projects.
The exhaustive list of options you’re looking for won’t work with that folder, and testing the limitations of that folder out is probably not worth your time.
From the Scrivener Manual:
7.5.3 Shared Templates on the Disk
For cases where you would like to provide a set of default file types for all of the projects you use, the shared templates folder might be your best bet. This feature keeps watch of a specified folder on your disk, into which you can place any files that are valid to be imported into Scrivener.
In the General: Templates preference pane (subsection B.2.7), click the Choose… button.
Selectthefolderyouwishtoplaceyoursharedtemplatefileswithin.
You should now see any files you place into this folder appear within the Project ▸ New from Template submenu, at the bottom of the list below any templates found within that project, if applicable.
The important caveat is that unlike document templates that are housed within the binder of a project, they will of course not be proper Scrivener binder items, and their usage mimics more the process of importing a file into the binder. So if the purpose of your template is to set metadata or set up the editor a certain way, these will not provide a solution for you.
Looks like this means that the folder selected as the Shared Templates Folder is a folder on the user’s local drive, and is referenced by a Mac (or windows) file system path. So how does such an asigned link to this designated folder effect the Scrivener Binder or its contents? How, after the user assigns Shared Templates Folder status to a finder folder, does that user access the contents of that folder from within Scrivener, from the Scrivener Binder? The restriction imposed that this Shared Templates Folder can only contain document types that Scrivener can directly import into a Scrivener document seems to exclude web pages or or PDF’s or links to the sorts of resources that can be imported into folders not within scrivener’s native “Manuscript” (“Draft”) binder folder. Is this true?
Any suggestions as to the best placement of a folder to be designated as the Shared Template folder? Is there any advantage or disadvantage to place this folder within the Scrivener folder within the Mac’s Applications folder? Should it rather exist in the user’s Documents folder?
Ok, I’ve gone to Scrivener preferences and assigned a Mac Finder folder as my Shared Template folder. Nothing has changed in my Scrivener project binder. The entire reason that I have asked for such a feature of course is so that I might have easy access to files and folders and documents and web links no matter which of my Scrivener projects I am currently working within. Meaning, I’d like these resources available within a Scrivener project from the moment I first create it, and each time I switch to it in the editor, without first having to somehow manually import these resources on a per project basis.
Once one designates a Shared Templates folder in Scrivener General Preferences, how does one go about accessing the contents of that folder from within the Scrivener application?
This is a VERY BAD IDEA™. Every time a minor bug fix/enhancement release comes, the update process will trash the Scrivener installation folder and replace it with the update.
As for your last question, you add a new document from template, which will copy that file into your current project. I gather what you want is some kind of folder that all your projects share so you can edit in one place and see those changes everywhere… but that’s just not possible with Scrivener. Each project is autonomous from all other projects. Metadata (especially custom metadata) is unique to each project, and is actually kind of hard to carry over into other projects…
You will have to find another way to keep a central copy of any information you want to view while working on your projects. With Scrivener, the primary way that people do that is to have a “series bible” project, which contains information common to other projects (like a series of books, each having its own project) for instance.
The easiest way might be to create a share project where keep base templates organization or other tools and share this project with other your other ongoing projects share to the others from one common resource project that can be shared with other people as well.
Like @GoalieDad said, create an ‘Author’ project containing all of the documents, metadata, etc you want to have accessible in all projects. With Scrivener’s ability to open separate projects as tabs within a single app window, it would be trivially easy to have this open alongside any project and refer to as needed.
From what I’ve understood from observing multiple conversations on the forum, a Google Docs/Dropbox like ability to invite people to view and edit Scrivener projects isn’t going to happen.
You absolutely can share a project between people in Dropbox using a shared folder in dropbox, the key is to make sure ONLY ONE person uses at a time. You could even share your resource project amoung multiple people as well.
Absolutely. I understood the suggestion to be quite different to that, but could be wrong of course
You are right he wanted a common folder sync between multiple projects at once. This does not exist, but what I suggested would accomplish much of what he wants