Page up/down behaviour changes with view

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

When viewing a single scene, page up/down moves a page within the text. When viewing a folder of scenes, the cursor jumps to the beginning/end of the current scene, instead of moving a page at a time. Can this be changed?

(This issue was raised twelve years ago! https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/page-up-down-in-folders-fullscreen-noted/8768)

2

Hi Jambalya. Welcome to the forum!

I never noticed that before, but you’re right.

In Scrivening mode, the way page up/down works seems more designed for navigating between documents—start at the top, then down to the bottom, then on to the next doc’s top, or vice versa—than it is for reading and “paging” through a single long document, usually by screenfuls. Whether that’s intentional or not, perhaps the user guide would indicate? It’s not unuseful, but maybe unexpected?

This made me realize I don’t use page up and down too often in Scrivener, and mostly scroll through pages on my track pad or with a scroll wheel.

3

If I remember correctly, it’s a side effect of the way scrivenings work on Windows – where instead of the various text snippets all being together in one single editor control (as it is in MacOS) they are actually each in their own (invisible) editor control. So the PgDn/PgUp controls have to be used to navigate between documents this way in Scrivenings mode.

2 Likes
4

Interesting.

So then this would also account for how, in a scrivening, using Ctrl up and down stops at each doc’s top and bottom points, and won’t cross into the abutting doc —the same “invisible” boundaries where page up and down stop.

But then, the “plain” up and down keys, and also the left and right keys, are able to cross those dotted borders. I’ve always wondered about that.

5

Yeah, this is a known Windows Scriv limitation, as per @devinganger’s explanation. (On Mac page up/page down Scrivenings works as it expected.)

It is discussed in detail in this year-old thread.

If you are at all technically inclined —

Based on a suggestion from another poster, I wrote a simple script in AutoHotkey to work around this limitation, and shared it here in the same thread. The script works great. I use it every day, and this limitation (that I used to complain bitterly about :innocent: ) really isn’t an issue for me any more.

In fact, here’s the latest version of the script. When in Scrivenings, press Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown to move up or down 13 lines (half a page with my settings). Let me know if you have any questions about it.

#NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
#Warn  ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
SendMode Input  ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%  ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

;--------------------------------------------------------------------------	

SetTitleMatchMode, 2

#IfWinActive ahk_class Qt5156QWindowIcon

;--------------------------------------------------------------------------	

^PgDn:: ; Ctrl+PageDown
Send {Down 13}
return

^PgUp:: ; Ctrl+PageUp
Send {Up 13}
return

Thankfully this is true. If it didn’t, my workaround wouldn’t work around!

Best,
Jim

1 Like
6

Thanks everyone for the insight. @JimRac I’ve converted your script to AutoHotKey v2 as follows:

 #Warn  ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
; SendMode Input ; this is the default with v2
SetWorkingDir A_ScriptDir  ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

;--------------------------------------------------------------------------	

SetTitleMatchMode 2

#HotIf WinActive("ahk_exe Scrivener.exe")

;--------------------------------------------------------------------------	

^PgDn:: ; Ctrl+PageDown
{
    Loop 13 {
    Send "{Down}"
    }
}

^PgUp:: ; Ctrl+PageUp
{
    Loop 13 {
        Send "{Up}"
    }
}
1 Like
7

@jambalaya Very cool of you, thanks! :metal:

I didn’t even know there was a Autohotkey v2 out there. :nerd_face:

Best,
Jim