I’ve built a pretty elaborate folder structure in my binder and would like to include collections inside the structure. I know how to do ‘New Folder from Selection’ but this folder doesn’t update automatically as I add new documents with the collection’s search term.
I’m looking for a solution like the MacOS ‘Smart Folder’ or Saved Search. Possibly a link or bookmark to a Collection inside a document would also work.
Scrivener has no mechanisms for assembling items, or moving them around automatically, based on any criteria. Its only mechanism for doing that is in fact the Collections feature (either fully manual, or search driven).
Hence, for this software, the better way to go about things is that if you need structure anywhere, then you should do that in the main binder. It’s the “all texts” lists and such that can be left to collections, rather than the other way around.
That said, Collections do not have to hide the binder sidebar, if that’s the main thing you are struggling against. Try right-clicking in the editor header bar icon, and from there selecting a collection to go to. These can be viewed like the contents of any folder, with the regular view modes, and for manual collections, you can drag and drop between the binder to move things around or make assignments.
There a workaround. You can create a blank document and call it Collection “x” for the X collection you currently have.
You can open the collection and use ctrl + a to select all the results and drag these into the blank document’s document bookmarks. (This is best done in split editor view with the blank document locked and on the right.
Now this blank document contains bookmarks to every item in the collection. Thus storing the collection in a document that you can place in the binder. If you delete collection “x” you can reconstruct it by creating a new collection and dragging the bookmarks from the old collection into it.