del
Cmd-3 and Cmd-4 are your friend - these keys enable you to switch between the two views very quickly. The reason I implemented it this way was that a lot of people wanted the ability to view the notes in a large pane, without the synopsis above them. You can completely collapse the references pane, which should please those folks. Obviously, I can’ please everybody. 
There is a design decision behind this, too: the synopsis is generally used for making a note on what your document is about. You will probably create this when you first import your document or when you decide that such a document needs to exist, so create a blank document and add a synopsis so that you know what that text should be about when you come to write it later. Meta-data and keywords also help you in this process.
The notes are there for when you are actually composing your document - and so are the references.
Hope that makes sense. I think if you get used to using the keyboard shortcuts it shouldn’t be such a pain.
del
I did consider having everything in one view and allowing you to collapse/uncollapse them, much like in the Aperture inspector, if you have ever seen this. However, that only really works if the views in question have a set height, and the bottom view just sizes to fit. This wouldn’t work for Scrivener’s inspector; the notes view has to be resizable; the index card adjusts its size to retain its index card proportions; references and keywords views need to be flexible in their height.
I’m not saying “No” for the sake of saying “No”. I’m just saying that I have already considered a lot of these things and it comes down to a trade-off between trying to please everybody and having a very cluttered and awkward interface, or asking some users to try out new things. The beta has only been out a day; when people have worked with it for a few weeks we will be in a better position to see which aspects or the interface really need refining.
Well, an example of not pleasing everybody… I want my Notes and Keywords on one pane. 
Based on what Maria wrote, I began using Synopsis for the first time. So now I may want the three of them on one pane — Synopsis, Notes and Keywords (I cannot praise Keywords enough - really helps my workflow).
I understand your struggle with one pane.
How about having a button at the pane bottom instead of a drop-menu — this way it’ll save us one click to switch between the two. As a recent switcher from Windows, I’m not very fluent with the keyboard shortcuts habit. I need to click everywhere.
Apologies for these small quibbles.
Lol. It really did have to be split into two panes to get everything in and to allow you to resize everything for maximum space. The way it is organised makes the most sense - notes and references for keeping track of associated ideas, and synopsis, meta-data and keywords for providing information that will help you recognise or find the document.
Remember that you don’t have to have the keywords panel open to assign a keyword - you can drag them from the Keywords HUD to the header or onto the document in the binder/outliner/corkboard too.
I’ll bonder on the way the panes are switched. The reason I went with the menu rather than buttons is because it infringes upon the window reszing know, so everything has to keep away from that without looking too ugly. Also, if there were two buttons, one always has to be “on”, which means there is going to be a darker grey or blue area down in the bottom corner of your string which could potentially distracting.
I agree that the menu is a bet excessive on clicks, though, so I will think about it.
Is there any limit on how large a note can be (in the “notes” pane). I will be using that pane to take notes, perhaps extensive ones. For example, I have an audio file open in one split window, a pdf with the transcript in the other. So I need a place to make notes. Since I can’t open a separate file view for a regular entry, which I would normally do, I plan to use the notes field. The notes pane would then be the place I will collect all information gleaned from the audio files and transcripts plus my own development thoughts regarding the material.
This is a case where I’d really like to be able to open entries in separate file views (that float!), since potentially I might need more than one open at a time. But since I know that will not be forthcoming, this is a workaround (using the notes pane).
Alexandria
Nope, the notes have no limits whatsoever. It sounds like using them is a good compromise solution in your case.
There are loads of problems with adding separate windows. Here are some:
Suppose I add floating windows. Suddenly they have to keep in sync with everything else. This was a pain in SG.
How would the separate windows show their meta-data? In a drawer? I always thought that was ugly in SG.
Suppose I add them. As soon as I do, some user will pipe up with, “Hey, can we have a split in the other windows?”
And then suddenly I have to add double-click ability to every icon so that the window can be opened like that, and…
Well, it goes on forever. I’m just not prepared to open up that particular can of worms at the moment.
Excellent. Please excuse my continued raving, but I’m just ecstatic with the capabilities I have with Scr. I’m able to work exactly how I’ve always wanted/needed to work and had pretty much given up finding an easy way to do this. I’m extremely grateful that you have had needs similar to my own when working, and that you’ve figured out how to make all this happen!
Alexandria
And I can definitely live without the separate windows view. As AmberV pointed out in another post, I can always use full screen view on my second monitor if I really need a third file open. For the most part, the notes pane is quite perfect and, after having used it for a bit now, is actually preferable to having a separate file open.
And thanks for explaining the difficulties there. It actually gave me a chuckle, since I know it’s quite true!!! Our requests never end, do they?
How difficult would it be to add the ability to expand the notes field (or a split, for that matter) to fill the entire window space? Kind of like a mini-full screen. Mori has a feature like this, where when you press Cmd-Ctrl-W, the navigation tree and outline view disappear, allowing the text view full priority. Perhaps, in light of the fact that Scrivener actually has a proper, fully functional full screen, it might be overkill to have the ability in all text views, but I can see how it would definitely be useful in the Notes field.
It all comes down to the hellish-ness of Cocoa split views. There have to be limits, otherwise the split views start clashing with each other and the views start going screwy and disappearing under the splits. In Scrivener, where you can have a vertical split in your document and you have a binder and the inspector, the document views have to have a minimum width, otherwise the header views can start acting weirdly. I’m not about to make the document views completely collapsible, either - the thought of going back into the split view code is just too depressing. It is one of the few bug bears of the AppKit.
As for Mori’s ability to collapse everything - Scrivener has this, too, but you can only do it for the main text, not the notes text. You could, if you so wished, make Scrivener look just like TextEdit while you composed.
I looked all over for this and could not find anything. I mean, I saw how I could individually disable all of the window dressings, but not a one key toggle like Mori has.
You’re right, there is no one key toggle. I never noticed that in Mori - but I like it.