Progress/Total progress bars

[Slartibartfast]

I know there’s often misunderstanding about how. these work and I’ve tried to read everything in the manuals but still have a couple of queries.

Firstly, assuming I’ve set a ‘target’ and ‘minimum’ (but no overrun) for a document, the Progress bar shows as expected - it’s red when under the minimum, blue when between min and target and green when at the target. All good.

For folders it just shows as empty because, well logic etc.

To see folder totals I have to use Total Progress bars - but these don’t show the red when under the minimum. Is that right? They’re always blue until the target is reached. Where’s my red??

Also, the fact that the folders show as empty in ‘Progress’ is sort of logical, but why show them at all? They’re just getting in the way and I can’t easily distinguish a folder from an unstated document.

I just want the folder targets hidden in Progress, or else the red sub-minimum showing in Total Progress, but currently neither works in a way that shows me at a glance what my status is.

Thanks.

[legacy_rdale]

Folders can contain text too, so you might, for instance, be writing an epigraph at the start of each chapter. You can then make a custom compile format that will take that epigraph and center the text after it adds the chapter number in big bold text.

For me, I’ve begun to transition away from chapter folders + scene documents in Scrivener 3. Instead, I make sure that every document and “document stack” in the binder is automatically assigned the “chapter” Section Type, and any documents indented under a document stack is considered a scene. Most of my chapters are self-contained, but occasionally, I break one up into scene breaks if I want to jump forward in time or space.

Same for my non-fiction writing, which almost always contains introductory text, even if it’s just a couple of sentences introducing the chapter topic.

Maybe you can apply a similar binder hierarchy to your projects?

[Slartibartfast]

@rdale

Folders can contain text too, so you might, for instance, be writing an epigraph at the start of each chapter. You can then make a custom compile format that will take that epigraph and center the text after it adds the chapter number in big bold text.

For me, I’ve begun to transition away from chapter folders + scene documents in Scrivener 3. Instead, I make sure that every document and “document stack” in the binder is automatically assigned the “chapter” Section Type, and any documents indented under a document stack is considered a scene. Most of my chapters are self-contained, but occasionally, I break one up into scene breaks if I want to jump forward in time or space.

Same for my non-fiction writing, which almost always contains introductory text, even if it’s just a couple of sentences introducing the chapter topic.

Maybe you can apply a similar binder hierarchy to your projects?

Thanks for this. When you say document stack, assume you mean just dragging one onto another? I think I follow what you’re doing but not sure what the benefit is… would you be able to explain? I can see that it gets rid of the folder concept and that gets rid of the ‘empty’ progress bars on folders, but does mean the first scene appears to have a different status than the following ones as it’s acting as a folder.

TBH, I can’t see what difference the Section Type makes at all anyway, is it not just a kind of tag effectively?

Intrigued

Edit: Just read up briefly on section types and now understand they’re for formatting when compiling.

[legacy_rdale]

When I say “document stack”, I mean “file groups”, which is a term I’ve finally tracked down within the Scrivener interface (as seen in Project->Project Settings->Section Types). I’ll try to be consistent with the nomenclature used there from now on; the other names for icons are “Files” and “Folders”, btw.

The “Default section types by Structure” settings can have an impact on what section types are assigned (without you manually doing it for every file/file group/folder). The settings for “file group” hierarchy is different from just the “files” hierarchy, so you have to account for “files” turning into “file groups” if you plan to add sub-documents to your files.

This is the primary annoyance (for my use-cases) of eliminating folders if I also want to account for file groups. If you have multiple scenes per chapter sometimes, but only one file per chapter other times, then I don’t know if it’s helpful to follow my lead, except to make the progress bars work better for your use-case. It might complicate other aspects of Scriver too much.

@Slartibartfast

I can see that it gets rid of the folder concept and that gets rid of the ‘empty’ progress bars on folders, but does mean the first scene appears to have a different status than the following ones as it’s acting as a folder.

A document that is acting as a container (“file group”) will have a different status and label from the “files” contained within it, as well as any other per-document meta-data in the project ( word counts, word targets, keywords, creation date, custom metadata, etc.). This setup probably won’t solve your issue with minimum word count targets (experiment by converting a folder to a document using the icons at the bottom of the binder) if your documents have sub-documents though. But if you just have one document per chapter, then you’re golden.

[kewms]

You don’t say exactly where you’re looking, but Outline view allows you to enable a Total Target column that will show the combined target for all items in a group.

Katherine

[Slartibartfast]

@rdale

When I say “document stack”, I mean “file groups”, which is a term I’ve finally tracked down within the Scrivener interface (as seen in Project->Project Settings->Section Types). I’ll try to be consistent with the nomenclature used there from now on; the other names for icons are “Files” and “Folders”, btw.

The “Default section types by Structure” settings can have an impact on what section types are assigned (without you manually doing it for every file/file group/folder). The settings for “file group” hierarchy is different from just the “files” hierarchy, so you have to account for “files” turning into “file groups” if you plan to add sub-documents to your files.

This is the primary annoyance (for my use-cases) of eliminating folders if I also want to account for file groups. If you have multiple scenes per chapter sometimes, but only one file per chapter other times, then I don’t know if it’s helpful to follow my lead, except to make the progress bars work better for your use-case. It might complicate other aspects of Scriver too much.

@Slartibartfast

I can see that it gets rid of the folder concept and that gets rid of the ‘empty’ progress bars on folders, but does mean the first scene appears to have a different status than the following ones as it’s acting as a folder.

A document that is acting as a container (“file group”) will have a different status and label from the “files” contained within it, as well as any other per-document meta-data in the project ( word counts, word targets, keywords, creation date, custom metadata, etc.). This setup probably won’t solve your issue with minimum word count targets (experiment by converting a folder to a document using the icons at the bottom of the binder) if your documents have sub-documents though. But if you just have one document per chapter, then you’re golden.

Thanks.

Your approach definitely helps with removing the blank folder progresses, but I think would confuse me otherwise I do like the concept of using folders for chapters and documents for scenes, which is what I’m currently doing,

Thanks for your insight though,

[Slartibartfast]

@kewms

You don’t say exactly where you’re looking, but Outline view allows you to enable a Total Target column that will show the combined target for all items in a group.

Katherine

Yes, looking in Outline view.

It’s the coloured bars I’m trying to get right really rather than just showing the word count as with the Total Target column.

All I really want is to be able to glance down a column of my documents/scenes and see whether they’re started, under minimum length, between min and target or above target.

To illustrate my point, I’ve attached a screenshot - I’ve not shown my files/folder or word counts deliberately because I’m trying to get the target bars into a nice way of seeing at a glance where I am.

If I use the Progress column, then it shows me green/blue/red statuses clearly, corresponding to my min/target word counts. All good. It’s also showing that there’s a scene that’s not started yet and is completely empty. Can you tell which one it is? No, you can’t (without looking at the second column), because folders display as empty bars for some reason. To me, they shouldn’t show at all, but they do and they’re exactly the same as an unstarted scene, which makes it impossible to see at a glance that I’ve set up a scene and not written it,

I can use the Total Progress column instead which shows me a total for that folder - sort of useful I guess and at least logical. I can now see that the last item in my column is the unstarted scene because it’s the only totally empty bar. All good.

But where’s the red gone? For no reason that I can fathom, red bars that show a sub-minimum word count have now been replaced with blue bars that are supposed to show a total between min and target. Why? No idea!

So… what I’m trying to find out is if there’s a way of either having the Progress column with the empty folder bars hidden, or the Total Progress column with the correct red colour showing, I can’t make either work in a way that can give me a decent at-a-glance view.

I’m hoping I’ve just misplaced one of the many settings or options that I generally don’t know about