Observation:
When I create an outline (not using the outliner) in a document of the form 1., 1.1, 1.1.1, the outline regularly breaks, where inserting a new line, say if I have:
one
two
and I try to insert a line between, I get
one
new two
two
or sometimes it restarts the list and there’s no way to join the two.
one
new two
two
Or sometimes a bullet gets added on indent, instead of the original format
one
one point one
two
Steps to reproduce:
Unclear - just play a little with outline formatting. It breaks very quickly.
Expected behavior:
Outline should stay up to date and not break.
one
new two
2.1 new two point one
two
Please don’t tell me an M4 chip will fix this with Apple Intelligence.
To clarify, sometimes it works to insert a new item. However, it breaks in a few minutes of use. The bullet points for the second level indent seem to be a default though.
Bullet/Number of the root element when I start is “1…2…3…”
Suffix is “.”
I have “prepend enclosing list marker” checked.
The functions involved are part of the black-box TextKit on which Scrivener is based, and KB has no control over that short of writing a complete list routine, which has other serious implications down the line.
I believe the solution is to select the whole list remove the list formatting using the menu and then re-applying it.
On the occasions when I have outlined — I’m a “pantser” by inclination — I have used the Binder. Put the title of each document to identify the ideas. This method makes it easy for structuring and for changing. Then there is no need to hope that Apple will fix TextKit.
I think this method exploits Scrivener better than putting an outline into one document. If one wishes to provide explanation of each point of the outline put that text into the Synopsis. Also works if you want to print the outline.
Oh and of course if one wants to experiment with a different narrative order leave the Binder-ed outline alone and create a Collection (right click the docuement title and then “Add to Collection”.) A document can be added to any number of Collections which gives full reign to playing with the order many different times. (Long-time forum users will remeber that I abuse Collections.)
If my memory serves—the problem of lists on both platforms has come up many times over the years—at some point Keith commented that the list code in TextKit is fragile. TextEdit and Notes are simple Apps, little more than TextKit with a UI, so presumably the fragility of the list code is not exposed in them.
As a comparison of an app which, like Scrivener, is built on extensively modified TextKit (footnotes, image support, styles, etc.) look at the word processor Nisus Writer Pro. Nisus have solved the problem of lists by creating their own listing system. It works within NWP, but in my experience, RTF documents with lists opened in NWP end up with every item in the list having it’s own separate list-marking, for which the only solution is to de-list it all and recreate the list structure line by line.
