Not sure whether this is a bug, wish, feedback or just me, so I’m plunking it here:
The template idea is appreciated, but it doesn’t save either window state or full screen settings. I have to reset them every time I open the template. Any chance of incorporating these settings into the template file?
Matt
Indeed, you’ll find these settings disappear if you work on more than one computer, too – or even just move the project to another folder. They are all stored in the Scrivener preference file, not the projects themselves. Further, the settings are stored by path. So if you have settings for “~/Documents/Tutorial.scriv” and move it to “~/Documents/ScrivenerProjects/Tutorial.scriv”, the settings will disappear.
I think the main reason it is done this way is for people that work on multiple devices with vastly different output devices. For example, if I were so fortunate to own a Mac Book Pro, I could have window size preferences saved for the small screen – and since I am fortunate enough to have a 24" screen at home, window settings for a huge amount of space too. If those settings were stored in the project, I would forever be tweaking my project window back and forth.
All of that said, I think that establishing a size and placement setting for templates is a good idea. This could perhaps be implemented in a similar manner as above, so that if you move a template from one computer to another it resets, but as long as you use it on one computer, it will propagate its settings into new projects.
Templates are not intended to hold window settings and all of that - merely contents of the projects. This way they can easily be shared between computers and between users without any problem.
Preferences are used to hold global settings, but these do not determine the window size of new projects.
The current behaviour is the expected, common OS X behaviour: when you create a new document, it is created with a standard size which you can resize. Preferences allow you to change view, colour and font settings etc. And the way preferences are stored - and the way window/view state-saving is stored, too - is the standard OS X way of doing it (as AmberV says, using paths in the preferences file). Saving these things inside the project file would not be good practice, because again, you would have to change your settings every time you moved your project between machines.
Best,
Keith
I have templates set up on other programs - Mellel for instance - that I mainly view on a 20" cinema display. When I open those templates on my 12" Powerbook screen, they scale down to the screen size. That’s the behaviour I’m after.
I’m not sure about standard OS X behaviour. The only programs I know that do this are Carbon, like Tinderbox and TextWrangler - and they have options for window management. Even Finder works with the user’s window preferences.
Perhaps you could give the user the ability to make templates to suit their different environments? The alternative is that whatever environment you’re in, with every new project you have to drag the new window to screen centre, drag it to size, adjust the binder width, reset Full Screen opacity, reset Full Screen paper width … all of which might be OK for the novelist who opens one project in a decade, but is tedious for journalists like myself. I’ve opened three projects this morning, with the above procedure, and it’s testing my otherwise brimming enthusiasm for the app.
Even a “Save Window Size” command like in Omniweb, so that all windows opened to a certain size, would help.
Windows gripes aside, count me among the impressed.
cheers
Matt
Have you tried using regular Zoom in the Window menu? When I fire up a new project, I simply open up Inspector since I leave that open constantly, and hit Cmd-Ctrl-. The Scrivener window automatically sizes itself to the height of the screen, and expands its width so that the text editor meets the preference default editor width set in General. It is a few mouse drags and key strokes. If you are one of those folks that prefers the entire screen be filled with Scrivener, Cmd-Ctrl-= does the trick instead.
I hadn’t, and I didn’t notice the editor width pref. That helps, but its only a partial solution. With all those prefs saved to a template, you could have the ideal writing environment with one click. I put templates for Mellel and OmniOutliner in a Dragthing dock, so when I want to write a letter, or send a fax, or whack out an outline, it’s only a click away. I hope I can do the same for my new writing environment.