Is there some method to apply Project Settings pulled from one project, to another project, the way that Scrivener Preference Settings can be saved from one project and loaded into another?
Randall Lee Reetz
It depends on the settings:
For those settings which consist of lists (e.g. statuses, labels, custom metadata, auto-complete), you can simply open both projects and their project settings dialogues side by side, then highlight the elements of each list in the first and drag it to the second.
SectionTypes can be imported and exported (the two boxes with arrows in the bottom right hand corner of the dialogue box.
I don’t know of a way to share the other settings in Project Settings individually (though you can share Styles and Document Templates outside that dialogue).
If this is something you’re going to do more than once, you may want to create a Project Template with the desired settings in place.
HTH.
This is not a solution. What am I dragging the list items into? Obviously, one would want to copy and past or drag and drop or in some other way import document settings from one project into another project. So as example should I have a custom metadata defined as a list in one project, and I want it in another, I should simply be able to export that or all of the custom metadata I have defined in one projects and import to any other project. That is different than a template project which would only have those project level settings that I had built into it beforehand. Secondly, it makes sense that any document brought into one project from another would bring with it any metaData that was assigned it. Doing so would require that metadata defined in the doner project be cloned in the recipient project. So if for instance the document “Insects” that I am dragging from project “Animals” into project “Things”, has been assigned the custom metadata “Legs” with a value “6”, the recipient project should also receive the custom metadata “Legs”. At the very least the user should be given a list of all metadata and other settings assigned to any document(s) being cloned into another project, and the option to bring over all of those settings and appropriate structures.
Randall Lee Reetz
A complete listing of settings that can be copied between projects is found in Appendix C.1 of the user manual, where Project Settings are documented. In addition to the stuff in the Project Settings panel, all aspects of a project’s physical layout and view settings can be stored and recalled via the Layouts feature (§12.3). So this is how you would share common outliner column settings, metadata visibility and so forth. Lastly are Keywords, as they have their own panel they are copied from panel to panel; both projects’ can have their panels open at once for this purpose. Keywords can also be imported/exported as comma lists or one-per-line text lists. See Importing and Exporting Keywords, in §10.4.2, pg. 250.
For the details on how items copy between projects, and the various techniques for doing so, refer to Copying Files and Folders Between Projects, in §6.3.4, pg. 106.
That’s exactly what Brookter suggested, but feel free to reference the aforementioned appendix for more detail. Copy and paste is available as an alternative to drag and drop, if you prefer.
It makes sense, and will do that, only up to the point where whole new fields are not being created. You do have to prepare the context before copying items, but new data within fields will be generated. To use your example, if the “Legs” field is a list type field that in the target project has “2”, “4” and “8” defined, and you drag “Insect” from the source project, the value “6” will be added to the “Legs” list type in the target project (assuming it is not called “Limbs” of course, the field names must match).
So go through appendix C first, get the target project all set up the way it should be, and then start copying files. You should find, as noted in §6.3.4, that near complete transfer of metadata is possible (those minor attributes not copied are listed there as well).
As for templates, what I do if I have a cluster of similar projects is keep the template up to date with changes made to these projects. So if I find myself needing “6” added as a possible value to a field, and copying that value around, then I’ll quickly edit the template as well, so that the next time I make one of these kinds of projects I needn’t worry about it, and it will be fully up to date even if I’ve forgotten all that has changed in the meanwhile.
“Appendix C” appendectomy.
Wow, Lots and lots and lots to remember. Would be way better if Scrivener automated the process. If you copy a document between projects, it brings with it any and all metadata and settings associated with it into the recipient project. If that means that the source project had a meta data type assigned to that project, that metadata is replicated in its entirety to the recipient project (or the user is given the option to opt out of this default action on a per setting basis).
Randall Lee Reetz
Randall,
Please read the instructions again, particularly the section in bold below:
Then try them out. You will find that you can indeed drag the statuses from the status list in the project settings of Project A to the status list in the project settings of Project B. You can do the same with the Labels and the Custom Metadata.
Do you think I was making this capability up just to annoy you?
You’re welcome.
Meaning I have to rebuild all of my metadata categories by hand on a project by project basis. Got it.
You asked if you could copy project settings across for metadata. This is how you do it. Or you can create them once in a project template and reuse that for new projects.
I suppose, if he’s trying to copy custom metadata to a new project, he could simply take the existing project, do a Save As to save it as a newly-name project, then go clear out all of the old documents. That would leave the project settings, custom metadata categories, and other settings intact.
Or use the project template functionality, which exists for exactly this purpose.
Katherine
I wonder if some of the disconnect is that we’re all focusing on templates, which help copy custom metadata fields to new projects, but is the OP trying to add them to existing projects?
I think it’s clear that yes, that’s what he’s trying to do.
If the number of projects and/or fields involved is large enough to be onerous, though, templates still offer a potential solution. You can use a template to create as many “new” projects with the desired metadata as you need, then drag material into those projects from as many source projects as you like.
A very large number of tasks in Scrivener have solutions that reduce to “do {hard thing} once, and then replicate the solution.”
Katherine
The issue is that I like some of my settings (accumulated over time and lots and lots of thought and experimentation) in one project, and others in another project. There is no way of mating two projects. I have tried. I keep them in the same folder, leave them alone, in the dark, for weeks even months, still, no mating happening, even when I play Al Green and Barry White!
Randall Lee Reetz
Well, then it sounds like what Katherine is telling you is your best path forward – maintain a template project that you update with your ideal mix of settings/configuration, and when needed, create new projects from that and drag your content, etc. from your existing projects into the new projects. It’s a little bit of work, but it sounds comparable to the work involved in (say for example) maintaining a specific document template in Word and having to occasionally re-attach that template to your new documents and resolve any issues.
Sometimes, there’s just no substitute for having to do some hard work to work your way up the learning curve and settle in to your preferred configuration. That’s been true for every worthwhile software application I’ve ever worked in.
This has been a good learning thread for me. I’m at the point where creating that project template is what I need to do. Keywords vary, but labels, styles, statuses, custom metadata… instead of copying it over, I need to make that project template. (Drags out stone tablet and chisels in another to-do item)
Perhaps I am missing something, but this shouldn’t ever be necessary. The documentation I referred you to describes how you can copy over every kind of metadata from one project to another. There is no need to manually rebuild metadata anywhere. The only thing we could say is that you need to manually copy over the metadata by category, there is no function that equalises two projects to have the same metadata with one command. I would say though that in most cases this wouldn’t be desirable. In most cases you want to copy some things but not all things, so in those rare cases where you want to copy all things, you need to copy and paste (or drag and drop) in a few different panes. It’s all something that should take less than half a minute though.
Templates are another matter entirely to my mind, there are about reducing your workload when creating new projects of a kind. You can use the same techniques for copying metadata from existing projects to create them, and then from that point on you won’t have to do that again (unless you change up your metadata for all projects of a kind).