Yes, I am the same way, though I tend to add compile settings while I’m writing, as I need to. If I think of a way I want to format a section or some text, for example, I will make the style or section type, and immediately go and set up the layout or styles settings. That way things always work, from A to Z, rather than having a big list of things I need to now do, based on half-forgotten styles I made months ago.
I don’t understand the follow-up question, sorry. Maybe it will be easier to see how it works in practice though, rather than just thinking about it in theory.
Thanks! So the main problem is that I don’t see any of the approaches we’ve discussed, either in the settings or when I compile (to make sure I was not missing something). What I see is the use of the <$W> placeholder, which produces “One”, “Two”, “Three”, but you’ve stated wanting to use <$R> above, so I’m not clear on why it is being used.
I don’t see the other placeholder that you said was printing as text instead of turning into a number.
@AmberV: I created a new test file + compile and the numbering works (thanks to copy-pasting your placeholder), but how do I add a subtitle (like “The Ward of the Crown”)?
Attached is a ZIP with the project so you can look.
Yup, that looks much better! I would give the method I described in this post above a try. That will do what you want if you switch to using the folder titles for the subtitle, and the Label feature for POV.
No worries! I am the same, so I get it. Here is a modified version of your example project, that uses labels for POV instead of folder names. This will I think be more useful for you anyway, rather than having dozens of folders all named the same.
When you open the project, the first folder will be selected, and the inspector is open, so you can see where to easily change the POV marker on new folders.
I used the View ▸ Use POV Color in ▸ Icons menu command to colour code the binder. I like that choice because it shows up everywhere the icon does, but there are other useful options in there as well.
To add new POV entries, use Project ▸ Project Settings... and click on the “Label” section.
You will see this is also where I changed the name of “Label” to “POV”. That’s mostly cosmetic in the software (it changed the menu name above). You still need to use the <$label> placeholder to print it.
To change a colour double-click on the little disc next to the label name.
In the compiler, double-click on the modified Format to see what I’ve done there.
Of note, the compiler settings for uppercase are buggy, so instead of using the Title checkbox in the top half, I’m using the <$TITLE> placeholder in the title suffix field. Typing a placeholder in all-caps like that forces the content it will print to all-caps, too—same for <$LABEL> in the prefix field.
Otherwise this is exactly what I typed above in the previous post, so no surprises. there.
Of course, just add them to that list I pointed you too in project settings! That is what the + button is for at the bottom. You can have dozens, and each one will have their own numbering stream automatically when compiled, starting from “I” on up.
Okay, thank you for finally letting me in on a proper use for labels. I’ve never used them in eight years of using this software (on both Scrivener and Mac)
It’s certainly one way! The label is one of my favourite tools because of how omnipresent the colour coding can be in the project—plus it is the only metadata field that has its own corkboard mode (View ▸ Corkboard Options ▸ Arrange by Label (or “Arrange by POV” in this case). For example, select Draft in the sample project and use that command.
It’s so useful I sometimes even swap what I’m using labels for from one phase to the next. I’ll use it for status (red, yellow, green like for new, started, done) as that gives me an at-a-glance look at how well the outline is coming along. But after everything is green, I’ll switch over to using it for something else, maybe more detailed editing notes, or even topical assignments like this usage.
