As a user with many projects and revisions, I often find it challenging to locate the correct project in the File > Open list. I would like to propose a new feature that could significantly improve this process.
Could you consider implementing a feature that displays additional information, such as the logline for each project or a text preview of the first/top file in the Binder pane? This enhancement would help users quickly identify the project or revision they are selecting, making project management more efficient.
This would function similarly to the Windows Explorer’s Preview Pane.
I’m not sure I’m visualizing what the output your suggesting here would look like. I’ve never looked at a logline for any of my projects, and the topmost Binder item might not be the best place to look because for most projects its a container without text. How the program could reach into my projects and pull out anything to preview that would actually be consistently useful likely would require a specific editor field to fill in a synopsis. For me, that’s not frequently something I have when I start working in a project, even if I put something bland there like “NaNoWriMo 2024” it might not be helpful ten years from now when I’m digging through archives looking for a story that has character X in location Y.
I do juggle a lot of projects, and what I find helps the most is a naming schema that makes best use of the first 18 characters in the filename, as those characters are most likely to be seen. I can’t tell you how often I’m looking a album over in iTunes (this issue is even worse in their Classical music app) and I see tracknames that have so much preamble that the actual part of the name that provides context is lost past the edge of the display, and worse the setup doesn’t scroll anymore either.
I don’t know the particulars of your use case, but you might also consider nesting many small projects into one large one, as folders in the binder. I do this with my patreon ideas in their various stages of completion before I post them.
Does Windows have anything similar to the Mac “Quick Look” function? On the Mac, the Quick Look Preview shows the contents of the first few documents in the Binder.
However, if you have multiple versions of the same project, the previews will naturally be very similar. In that case, it’s essential to use a file naming convention that lets you keep track of which is which.
We also recommend using Scrivener’s “Favorites” list for currently active projects.
I assume the OP’s question relates to a closed project.
Windows has a similar feature to Quick Look on Mac, called Peek, but it cannot preview content of a SCRIVX file, but only renders as follows, with a button (option) to Open the project, as on Mac.
For this you’d need to download PowerToys from GitHub–available for both Windows 10 and 11 users. It’s free Beta software and has many useful functions on Windows.
Once PowerToys is installed, you invoke Peek by selecting a file and using Ctrl+Space in File Explorer.
Again, for the OP, you could use File Explorer’s Search function if you’re looking for a project containing set specifics. Search not only finds files but also reads the content and can give you an idea in which project your criteria may be found–see below.
