Hey.
This might be related to the fact that for the moment a user (windows version) can’t edit across a document’s boundary when viewing multiple selected documents in a scrivening, but here is a buggy behavior :
When using Edit / Find / Project Replace with the scope set to “selected documents only”, only one document is actually processed.
(Corresponding to the one document having its title displayed in the title bar (scrivening). Or highlighted in the corkboard or outliner.)
→ This is strange given that Edit / Find / Find does travel across document’s boundaries in a scrivening…
I just tried something :
This time I went in corkboard view, and selected all the documents (on top of them being all already selected in the binder). This time project replace processed all my selected documents as it should.
Further investigating :
If the user did nothing at all in the scrivening after selecting the desired documents, it works properly.
But if you click anywhere in the editor, thus making the binder’s selection lose focus (its blue shade), it then doesn’t work – even though multiple documents are selected.
→ Meaning that you have to cancel the binder’s selection, and select the desired documents again.
→ Or navigate the focus back to the binder.
(But I can’t think of any reason why someone would want Project Replace to behave like that.)
In other word, Project Replace is limiting itself to the selection in the panel that has focus, instead of using the binder’s selection.
To some extent, I could understand why someone would want it to behave like that in say, the corkboard (that makes sense), but definitely not in a scrivening.
Here is what the manual says about it :
So, nothing about a scrivening. – Where you can’t select multiple documents anyways.
I suppose that in the corkboard or the outliner, the idea is to make a (smaller) selection within a binder selection. Ok.
But if that is the idea, then I can only suppose that clicking in a document inside a scrivening actually shouldn’t affect either the corkboard’s or the outliner’s selection. (Perhaps that is the bug here.)
I did the test :
- select a few documents
- navigate to corkboard
Navigate / Move focus to / Editor → no one specific document is highlighted among the documents previously selected in the binder.
- switch to scrivening view
- click on the text of a document
- switch back to corkboard : you now have that same document selected…
→ Same result when preselecting all documents in the corkboard. Selection is lost and down to only that one document after visiting (and clicking in) the scrivening view.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
But yet, the focus being on the scrivening – so neither on the corkboard or the outliner at the time of Project Replace (they are not even visible ; no split editor) -, in all logic (or as per the manual - per deduction, “scrivening” not being mentionned), the operation should use the binder’s selection, since technically, there is no such thing as a scrivening documents (sub-)selection…
…although as it is at the moment, if the user clicked in the scrivening, there is. ( → A selection that could never be of more than one document.)
But hey, as long as one remembers to give the binder focus, it works.
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being “meh”, 10 being “oh my god oh my god we all die”),
I give this buggy behavior a 2.
Clicking on text in the scrivenings doesn’t affect the Binder selection, but it does change focus, and I think you need both selection and focus.
Yep. Exactly what I came to conclude.
But quite counterintuitive.
…And left out of the manual.
(I mean, if you want to Project Replace a selection you made in the corkboard from a previous selection made in the binder, having the focus on the corkboard and not on the binder is kind of “it goes without saying”. But having documents selected in the binder, and validating the selection in the consequent scrivening, one could easily expect the binder selection, since that is exactly what he/she is validating, to be what will then be affected by the operation… The problem arises if the user happens to have clicked in the scrivening in the process. → That is the counterintuitive part here. )
To say it in as a few words as possible :
My opinion is that when the focus is on scrivening view, Project Replace/"Selected documents only" should still use the binder’s selection.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
There is also the behavior where clicking in the scrivening cancels the corkboard\outliner selection within a binder’s selection, but that is minor. It takes a lot more manipulation from the user, and I suppose that it would only be a problem under very narrow conditions.