Recently began using Squarespace for a new website, and I had a look at their available extensions and other tools, finding nothing there of suitability to let me show off project target progress. See Squarespace Extensions – Customized Website Plugins – Squarespace for what they do, and if anything listed is something I could adapt to this use, then let me know in a reply.
The Project Target (the advance part with a daily target) lets you schedule a daily writing goal. Now Squarespace has a scheduling tool, and I had a look at it, but it’s for events and not for workload, i.e. how many words you need to write to get a book done by a deadline. For example, a thousand words per day to have a 50k book done in fifty days…
So I came here with this bold idea for a connectivity between this software and Squarespace (maybe to work with them on such a tool to be available). I’ve noted from recent years I’m not the only author to use Squarespace as it’s the mention of it by others that prompted me to go with them.
So, you know how the new 3.0 Project Targets options (namely draft target) are there. Just as you can connect to Dropbox as the storage option, and therefore the software had to be configured to allow for a user to connect (and keep connected) to Dropbox, the idea I had was for a plugin that you run to connect to an active Squarespace website (you are prompted for a username and password for your account there) and then you have the Scrivener Scheduler available (also people who use Squarespace and want to use this plugin are prompted in turn to buy and register Scrivener 3.0 software so that would also increase use of this software.
So, how do I think the plugin would work (in layperson/non-technical terms)?
- The plugin would ask me to search for the project I want to connect to a page in a matchup. Let’s call the title of this project: Latte Is Good.
- When you’ve put in Latte Is Good as the title, it will ask you to select the domain name for the matchup. Let’s call the site: Lit Is Good.
- Now it found Lit is Good, you’re asked to select Latte Is Good from the list of Pages.
- Now it will do it wizard stuff and link the Project Target data to the Latte Is Good page.
- If, for example, I have a deadline of 31 December 2022 for Latte Is Good, then it will ask me to add the box from the + (plus sign) on the page in edit mode, from the box that pops up which would list this plugin as an Integration. I select the Scrivener Scheduler (btw, that might be a good name for it!) and it then places the deadline information at that place on the page. If I make an update in Scrivener, such as I change the date to 30 November 2022 instead, the deadline on the webpage automatically updates.
Separately, I might want to point out that the Project Target tool in Scrivener should consist of two components. The first one is the “writing component” we already have, and the second the “editing component.” So, using the above Latte Is Good with the 31 December 2022 deadline, there are 462 days. Instead of just knowing I have 462 days for writing, we could split that to 231 days are for writing and 231 days for editing, even if it’s not done inside the software. Based on this, there’s a marked difference between 217 words to write in 462 days and the book is with the professional editor during 50% of the time and you have to write double that in 231 days, though maybe a slider included could also be included to allow an author to set the time is scheduled for editing (from 65% to 10% or something like it, which changes the “words per day” entirely). And the choice of allowance for “editing time” would then also alter the deadline output on the Squarespace site.
The idea behind this is to create an easy (or easier) to manage “scheduler” of estimated book publishing goals. It would list as “Estimated publishing date: 31 December 2022” on the Squarespace site.
Maybe the further addition could be a progress bar that matches the progress bar at the top of Scrivener (that becomes a search tool when you click it), and on the Squarespace site it goes from empty to filled as it gets the Manuscript Target amount, and goes from red to orange when the writing target is reached, and to yellow to green when the editing period progresses (and a simple login into Scrivener updates these values on Squarespace.
Yes, all this is perhaps a Scrivener 4.0 idea, or even 5.0. But if someone could do as closely as I suggested, it would be such an excellent tool for an author-oriented Squarespace website. 
Okay, either this is remotely an okay idea or I’m in the crazy idea territory. LOL