I have a number of suggestions to improve the Project Keywords HUD. I find the HUD very handy, but editing it with a mouse extremely frustrating. These suggestions are an attempt to make that easier and more convenient. I’m currently using the Windows Beta version of Scrivener, so if there’s functions like these in the Mac version, I don’t know about them.
Add the ability to export/import (and import & append) the keywords to/from an internal document
The user would choose which document to use (including creating a new document) to export/import to/from. An export would overwrite the contents of that document Import would replace the current project keywords definition with the contents of the selected document, and Import-Append add the contents as new entries to the Project Keywords definition. A keyword document would have a simple markup format for each line of indent; text; colour. Tabs could be used to show indents so that no tab is the top level, one tab is an entry under that, and extra tabs showing further indents. A semicolon (or other character as defined somewhere in OPTIONS) would separate the indent level from the keyword text, and that from the colour value. For example (where -> represents a tab),
Locations
->England;#ff0000
->->London
->->Manchester;#00aaff
->->->Man. Post Office;#00aaff
->->->Police Station;#00aaff
->->Scotland
->->->Edinburgh
…would look a bit like this after being imported…
Where there’s no tab the top level is assumed, and where there’s no colour code the default colour would be used.
The advantage of this would be that the user can sort/edit the keywords as they like within Scrivener using all the edit functions. Or, they could copy what’s in the document, edit it in an external text editor, and then paste that back into the internal document. No need for sorting toggle in the dialogue box, because the user can sort them any way they like. The advantage of having the definitions in an internal document is that they’re saved with the project, and easy to copy over to another project. A project could have more than one set of keyword definitions as well, simply by having each in a separate internal document.
HUD enhancements
It would nice to be able to dock the HUD on either the left or right sides, especially if you have a long list of keywords. Docking would mean that it wouldn’t obscure either the binder or inspector.
Add selected text as a keyword
Add a couple of keyboard shortcuts/functions to add selected text as a keyword. The first would add the selected text (in the editing window, or in the inspector, or binder, whatever’s currently active and selected) as a new keyword in the keywords section in the inspector for that card/document. The second would add the same to the current location in the HUD. This would save some retying.