Every time I alter a template in Script Settings for a project, it saves the template as a new template, under exactly the same name. I now have 4 templates in the Scriptwriting dropdown menu called Musical Stage Play (US), 2 each called Stage Play (US) and Stage Play (UK), 2 each called BBC Radio Scene Style and BBC Taped Drama. I have no idea how to delete the ones I have discarded. Moreover, when I used the feature in Script Settings, under the particular template, to save it for use in other projects (and I give it a distinctive name like “Musical Stage Play (US) in Century Font”, it supposedly is saved under Library/Application Support/Scrivener/ScriptFormats. I can’t even find a Library folder on my Mac, nor does searching under the filename work. This is all very confusing to me. Help.
It’s usually best to call your custom templates something unique so that you can tell them apart from the built-ins, like you did with the Century one. You cannot delete the built-in templates though.
It sounds like you might be on Lion, as Apple in all of their wisdom has decided to make the crucial Library folder invisible even to searches. We’ve added a menu command to help with this. In the main Scrivener menu, choose Reveal Support Folder in Finder. That will open up the “Scrivener” folder which will have your automatic backups, custom templates, compile presets, layouts and all of the other things you create.
But you often don’t need to mess with the files themselves. If you want to move the templates to another computer, you can export them with the Options drop-down menu at the bottom of the new project window. If you have a bunch to move though, getting at the files works fine.
But just so you know, for other programs that don’t have a shortcut like that, you can use the Go/Library menu command in Finder. To see it, hold down the Option key while looking at the Go menu.
Yes, I do have Lion. I’ll try what you suggest. Thanks.
P.S.: Okay, I found the custom template in the support folder. But howcum it doesn’t show up in the dropdown list at all, under Scriptwriting, and why can’t I delete the custom templates in that dropdown list (the duplicate-named custom ones don’t show up in the support folder, by the way) whose names duplicate the built-in ones. After all, they’re not built in.
P.S. Okay, I’ve found the custom template, and yeah, it’s THERE, but Scrivener still can’t find it when I want to start a new project from the template, and it isn’t displayed under templates in the Scrivener startup menue. I can’t pull it up from within Scrivener at all, and when I open it from Finder, all I see is code.
I’m not sure. Normally when you adjust the settings in a project nothing happens in the menu. The project’s script settings are internally saved, but are not externally saved into your settings unless you specifically use the Manage... drop-down to "Save for use with other projects`. And while it is possible to create a duplicate name using a built-in—thus having two “Screenplay” entries—it should not be possible to have three, because if you try to save another “Screenplay” it will ask you if you wish to overwrite the current custom “Screenplay” with the new settings. The name of the script just comes from the file name, and you can’t have two files in one spot with the same name. So something is strange with your menu.
Can you reproduce this case where a third duplicate is created merely be adjusting some settings in a project and post steps to take?
We crossed. I amended my post above with some other questions.
And as far as the duplicates are concerned, what may have happened is that I created them in different projects of the same kind (several musicals), by altering the script elements, overriding, but not changing the filename.
Okay, I’m confused at this point. Are we talking about Project Templates or Script Settings? These are two very different things. If you save your script settings to the Scrivener menu (so that they show up as a file in the support folder), then it is in the scriptwriting menu that they will appear. This does not automatically create for you a project template. If you want a project template with a particular scriptwriting format set up as default, then you need to create your own project template.
That still shouldn’t account for duplicates because like I say, nothing gets added to this menu unless you specifically use the Manage drop-down in the Script Settings panel to “Save for use with other projects”—and that won’t let you use the same name twice. It doesn’t matter how many unique tweaks you make in other projects, those settings only ever exist within that project’s settings. They are a fundamental part of it, and are expressed nowhere else in the application.
Could you post a screenshot of your ScriptFormats folder along with the Format/Scriptwriting menu? Feel free to send it to support AT literatureandlatte DOT com, if you can’t edit out any private information in the shot, but if you use a blank project that should suffice.