Just curious about the outlining features in Scrivener 2.0. Any info would help keep my mouth watering.
For me, I’ve always had a hard time getting used to Scrivener as an outlining tool. I still do most of my outlining in OmniOutliner, mainly because the controls for creating new items and designating parent/child to items are much more familiar to me. A long while ago I came here to grumble and moan about how hard it was to outline for an OO user in withdrawal, and I was told something along the lines of 2.0 will improve this. Well? New control scheme? Whatcha got coming? Anyone have tips on ways to leverage outlining in Scriv?
The outliner has definitely been improved in 2.0, but it is still at heart a way of manipulating documents, and so has not changed in any fundamental way.
Best,
Keith
I had a friend who was interested in Scrivener ask if they could sort the outline based on any of the columns. I tried this in the current version, and it looks like for now the answer is no. Is this going to change in version 2.0?
The specific kind of sorting she wanted to do was on character, or editing status (e.g., put all the first drafts at the top and then work your way through them), and along similar lines.
That’s great to hear. Working on a novel with two lengthy storyline’s that often intertwine and having some way to sort amid the many sections of the outline would be helpful.
Till now I’ve been working in a numbered list format within a scriv file to write the outline of events in each chapter, then intend to create synopses for the folders as “chapters”. I guess I’ll just cut/paste the sections of the character outline as a child within the chapter folder.
Good to hear. But does that mean that an entire outline (or subset of one) can be flattened and sorted or that the notes stay indented and sort within each level? If it’s the former that would be great - I haven’t seen that feature in an outliner since “In Control” and it can be very useful.
Although you could achieve this by running a project search for something common, like the letter ‘e’, and then loading up the search results (which will be a flat list of course) in the outliner.
Sounds like a reasonable approach, Ioa. Could I then sort the results by any field? - which I imagine would get me where I wanted to go in the first place.
While I’m on the topic,in 2.0 will searches on Label and Status sort in the order of their respective pull-down menus? It would be nice to be able to rearrange the menus on the fly and have the sort order reflect the changes. If I’m not mistaken, in 1.0 you have to carefully create the menu items in chronological order if you want the sorts to follow them.
In any case, thanks for the reply, Keith - it must be fun being asked to include every feature seen in every outliner, scriptwriting program, and page layout tool released since MacWrite. (That said, I do miss In Control, not to mention the long lost More.) Here’s to Scriv 2.0 making all that obsolete.
That would be correct. Once you have the search results loaded in the outliner, you could then sort by anything visible to the outliner, such as modification date, word count, etc.
Honestly, I’d never even noticed how labels sort as I’ve only ever used that ability to lump like items together, and never cared precisely what order they were in. It looks like 2.0 acts the same though: in the order they were created.
Oh, and don’t forget: every timeline application, mindmapper or diagramming application, video editing system, PDF editor, and Photoshop.
At least no one has asked Keith to put in any gaming features, though bouncing the scratchpad around does feel quite PONGish to me.
In any case, I get the feeling that I’ll be able to sort well enough for my purposes.
Thanks for the reply; I’ll do my best to save any further questions until after the release - I imagine you folks are pretty busy these days.
I’m succumbing to the urge to beg news of Outliner 2.0 features. I tried to resist, I really did (really!), but as I procrastinate on my coming Nanowrimo project, I’m trying to determine the best way to set up Scriv to track the different info I want to keep tabs on and I thought before I design some amazingly complicated system, I should see what features are going to make my life so much simpler at the end of the month. Particularly since I’m roping someone else into using Scriv as well, I’d like to be able to have a clean interface for the project to show her how awesome the program is.
So a couple questions about the new features:
Will we be able to view info in the custom columns only in the Outliner, or will it be accessible via the inspector?
Is there a way to include keywords in the Outliner (either a dedicated field or an easy way to drop them into a custom column without just sitting and typing everything fresh)?
Can we assign more than one label per document?
Sorry to pester. I know you’re busy actually writing the program…
Thanks for all the teasers you have handed out! I’m incredibly excited for 2.0, like everyone else. And of course I still love 1.54. (Also I’m psyched about the new Windows one, I might as well say here; I’ve already emailed off the link to the video and news page to all my PC writer friends.)
Absolutely. In fact custom meta-data is most easily “administrated” from the Inspector. There will be drop-down menu and a hot-key to flip between standard and custom meta-data in the spot where “General” currently sits in 1.x.
Yup, there will be a dedicated Keywords column in Outliner 2.
Nope, that’s still not going to be possible. But, keywords are finally getting more visibility. In addition to display in the Outliner, all keywords will be assigned a colour in the HUD when you create them (which can of course be customised). These associated colours can be “taped” to the side of index cards in the corkboard. So you’ll be able to see at a glance what keywords a document has, just by looking at its index card. This should provide similar capability to what any kind of auxiliary labelling system would provide. Keywords will also feature auto-complete, making it much easier to hit the right keyword while typing them into the Inspector.
