Small Improved Project Meta-Data

Hi guys,

(Note — I know we can do custom meta-data using the “Meta-Data Settings” dialog, but that’s not the kind of thing I’m referring to here).

On the Project Properties pane of the Meta-Data Settings dialog, it’d be nice if there were three additional fields: “Subtitle” and “Middle Initial,” “Publisher” and “Contact Info” section containing fields for address, phone, and email address. (Hear me out on this one.) I know its possible to use opt-Return to make a line-break in the title field, but wouldn’t it be simpler if there were simply an optional field called “Subtitle”? And as for the second request, well, I’m an author who uses his middle initial a lot in his writing, and I don’t fancy putting into the “Forename” field, since that could cause confusion elsewhere. This field could be optional, like Subtitle. The “Publisher” field would be for all us self-publishers, since both the iBooks and Smashwords require you to choose a publisher name for yourself. Finally, the “Contact Info” section would allow the user to override the information that Scrivener finds in their address book (which isn’t always a reliable way of getting author information, though it does give you user information. (For instance, a teenage girl who writes a novel or story using her mother’s copy of Scrivener, an older man who uses a copy residing on his son’s computer,someone who uses their roommate’s computer to write, or any number of a dozen other circumstances.)

I think that adding these fields to Project Properties gives them a bit more visibility in the interface, as well as a bit more of prominent location and permanence from one project to the next, as well as gives the user more flexibility in terms of how they manage their Project.

Anybody else think this (or something similar) is a good idea?

—Andy H.

The trouble is the the address information is read and used when the project is created, though, so by the time you could enter anything into Project Properties it would be too late - at that point you may as well just edit the address on the title page (or create your own template with the address you want to use). The fields in the Project Properties area are for the placeholders used commonly in headers (where it is common for novel manuscripts to include the surname in the header and so on). Having the publisher listed there wouldn’t be all that useful, either, because it wouldn’t be used anywhere by Scrivener - in which case you can enter the publisher somewhere yourself (such as in epub meta-data etc).

All the best,
Keith