I started out unaware of custom meta data, and thus was using the scene/file name in my binder to know who the main viewpoint character was. So the files in each chapter had a name in it. Thus I could scan my binder and relatively quickly go to events for different characters.
I just went through my project and used the outliner to assign custom meta data to each scene so I know the character viewpoint for the particular scene. That let me get rid of the file names so my manuscripts will compile better without seemingly random character names showing up between scenes. However, I lose the ability to quickly find a character in a chapter and open that writing because of how the outline view works.
Ideally, I would like to pick a custom data field to include in the binder’s view. If that’s not an option, I would like to pin an outline view as a side panel and be able to click on a spot in that outline and have it open that text in one of the document views/splits.
Have you investigated using labels for POV, so you can set “Useb Label Colour in Binder” for this? Or alternatively using keywords?
You can search for keywords.
Mark
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You could split the editor, outline view on one side where you can display any metadata you wish in a visual that is close to the binder’s.
At the bottom, there is a little icon (a box with an arrow pointing outward) ; that toggles open selected document in the other editor.
Once you’ve set up screen and metadata, you can save that as a screen layout for fast recall.
Isn’t there already a Dual Layout option standard in the Layouts Manager?
I also you custom icons (any png file will work). Classically I choose shapes and change colors. So the icon shape can mean one thing visually and the color can function like the label view.
This way you can have a visible label color with metadata attached and use icons of various colors and shapes as additional informal metadata and keep a key for them.
Simple shapes are easy to see. (I am using AntoniDol fantastic theme he sells on website (Tropical Night)
There is, if one doesn’t have the built-in layouts hidden, but even then, the user still has to save it under a new name/layout in order to have the outliner metadata choices of what to display recallable.
A couple things come to mind.
- Are your scenes in separate documents?
- Did you know you can sort your outline by clicking on the column headings?
- Is your outline expanded so it shows all the subdocuments?
This is where a collection comes into play. If you create a collection by searching for your POV character (or any metadata) and save it in a collection, you can then make collections visible at the top of your binder. The beauty of this is that when it is created using the search function, it will update when you add/remove POV tags AND you have one click access to each POV collection. 