I can’t seem to get this to work in the new Version 3.
It may be something very simple, but I’m just not seeing it? It’s always greyed out on me.
Working for me — ⌘+SHIFT+F to search, then click the magnifying glass icon and select “Save search as collection…” — have you tried resetting the search to default setting and try again?
It’s ok I just now figured it out. I was getting extra confused with the added search bar, etc.
Yes, I thought you may be trying to search using the new quick search text entry in the toolbar (why I explicitly mentioned the key binding). If you haven’t read about it, it is nevertheless a very neat new feature!!! 8)
Save search as collection… Huh. Does this get automatically updated when search results change?
Yes.
Search Collections have a little magnifying in front of their Collection names to identify them.
You can convert a Search Collection to a Standard Collection.
It’s easy enough to get familiar with all this by creating a new project, etc.
I, too, am having trouble with this previously simple operation. “Save search as a collection” is always greyed out. I am opening collections, selecting “search results”, searching labels, confining it to binder only. I get the list of documents that meet those criteria, but when I click the magnifying glass again, "save search as collection is always greyed out.
What am I doing wrong? Never had this problem in Scrivener 2… I sense that I’m doing some boneheaded thing wrong, but still can’t get it to work. Please advise…Thanks!
First, make sure that you’re on the latest and greatest version of Scrivener – if you’re running on Catalina and have an older version of Scrivener 3, there’s all sorts of weird little gremlins and glitches that can appear. Go into Scrivener and check for the latest version (assuming that you’re using the direct download version; if you’re using the Apple Store version, go into the App Store and verify there.)
Yep, I’m running the latest version, though I’m still in the trial version. I tried closing and restarting. Then I officially upgraded and opened back up.
Still have the ‘save as collection’ greyed out. It’s so frustrating. And I really need this to work.
For grins, I opened an old project in Scrivener 2 and ‘saved as collection’ just fine (as I have been doing for years). So I’m doing the right mechanics, as far as I can tell. Is there some obscure setting or condition that I’ve got wrong?
Please help!
Could you send a screenshot, please?
The command works fine for me, and I’m not even able to figure out a way to make it not work. So yes, you appear to have found a fairly obscure setting.
Oh, one thing to check. Have you actually searched for anything? “Save as Search Collection” is grayed out if the search bar is empty.
Katherine
Un.Freaking.Believable. As I attempted to recreate the issue for the screenshot you asked for, everything worked! Collections saved! I have no idea what the issue was before. I did the exact same thing. Maybe my project just coughed up a hairball or something. Anyway, thanks for trying to help!
UPDATE and EXPLANATION: “Save as Collection” doesn’t like the parameter of “search binder selection only.” That’s why it was always greyed out…I wanted to limit the search by label to the documents I had selected, so not to include documents with the same label in other parts of the project. I guess that’s not an option, because as soon as I added that search criteria, it took “save as collection” off the table. Is there a work around?
Ah. You can’t save a search limited to the Binder selection because the search command doesn’t control the Binder selection. That is, the results will change every time you do something in the Binder. With a large project, that’s potentially a performance issue.
The workaround would be to save the search (Search B) without that option. Then, when you actually want to look at the results of the search, select the appropriate files in the Binder, then enable the option.
You can automate selecting the files in the Binder by assigning some kind of metadata to the files you want, and saving a search (Search A) based on that metadata. Select all the results of Search A, then run Search B with the Binder Selection option enabled.
Katherine
Thanks, Katherine.
With your help, I was able to rethink my binder organization to make this work like I want it to.
I’ve been creating a pretty specialized template for developing, writing, editing, and finalizing presentations, which I want to use for every presentation I create. I want all my presentations in the same project, as I frequently borrow content among them. I want the project to serve as a repository for them all, as well.
I need the collections function to only work on the “active” presentation, not all the others. That’s why I’d been trying to limit my search criteria to “binder selection only.” If I didn’t limit it, it was including all documents with the same label from ALL of the presentations.
So here’s what I did to make it work like the tool it is intended to be:
I moved the other folders in this project (which are simply different presentations I will be or have already worked on) out of the “Manuscript” level (or, as I’ve named it “Presentations”). I put them in their own folder (Past and Pending Presentations) down beneath the Notes folder, then limited my search criteria to “Search ‘Presentations’ Only.” Saving as a collection works that way and gives me what I want…it returns documents only from the one I’m actually working on. Then when I want to work on another presentation, I’ll just pull it out of the ‘Past and Pending’ folder into the ‘Presentations’ folder and put the one I’m done with in the ‘Past and Pending’ folder, which essentially switches out ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ parts of the larger project.
This way, the same saved Collection will work for whatever’s in the “Manuscript/Presentations” level. If I’m finished working on Presentation A, and want to work on Presentation B, I just move A to the Past and Pending folder and B to the “Presentations” level.
It really was a simple, organizational fix, once you brought my attention to how that search criteria works (and doesn’t) for collections. You got me thinking differently and that’s all I needed. Thanks again!
Nancy
Happy to help.
You may find that organizing your project in that way makes other operations easier as well. It will definitely simplify the Compile command, for example.
Katherine