I believe the best feature for Scrivener 3 would be having the ability to open multiple projects as tabs the same way web browsers let you open up multiple tabs.
I hope I am not the only one who would love this feature.
You might want to check out the thread in the Beta Testing forum which mentions the program “Groupy”, which would put Scrivener projects in tabs. It is discussed a few posts down in the thread “[NB] How to consolidate all open Scrivener projects?” and the link is https://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewt]topic.php?f=57&t=61821&start=15&hilit=groupy . (I hope this is the right way to give links to a thread.) Groupy works with Scrivener 3 but - as opposed to what someone says there - I think that you do have to ungroup the projects in order to drag and drop between them.
This is from May 20, 2020: [url][NB] How to consolidate all open Scrivener projects?]
FWIW, I still prefer separate Windows rather than tabs.
Ah, I forgot about (or never noticed) the “Float Window” option (under the “Window” menu). It allows one to put two or more projects side by side, and drag and drop between them. (Maybe I’m overlooking something, but I don’t see “Float Window” in the manual, but it’s in the Window menu, and it seems to work fine.)
And then, there are Quick Reference Panels, which allow one to keep separate documents in view, even from different projects. (And of course there are “copyholders” as well…) I hadn’t realized all this; its a bit overwhelming – it’s amazing the variety of tools Scrivener 3 has! Still, one could, to a certain extent, use both Groupy and these other options at the same time, thus getting the best of both worlds (tabs and separate windows).
Notepad++ uses tabs as part of the program, I don’t see why Scrivener can’t.
Since Notepad++ is mostly a wrapper around the Scintilla editing component, comparing it to Scrivener with its coordination between editor panes, Inspector, Binder, Corkboard, and other components is hardly the same thing.
RE: BC & Notepad++
Notepad++ is MS Notepad on steroids. Scrivener is Word on Steroid Steroids. Notepad++ is nowhere near the functionality of Scrivener BUT it does have tabs: thus you have one icon on task bar but access to many documents through tabs.
I think this what the OP meant. Thus, open multiple projects. There would be one ‘instance’ shown on the task bar, but each project would be on a tab. There would be NO automatic functional interaction between the projects. You’d just click the tabs to view the different projects.
Currently, I open multiple projects (up to three) and they each take a chunk up on the task bar. I’d like Scrivener to appear once on the taskbar.
You can do that now by going to Windows Settings and under Taskbar, change “Combine taskbar buttons” to “Always, hide labels.” Yes, not the same thing as a tabbed window in Scrivener, but it does resolve part of the taskbar problem.
I’ve always considered this to be in the domain of the window manager. That is how it is on all other major operating systems at any rate, and I’ve heard that Microsoft has been considering adding it to Windows. We had requests for this from Mac users for years, until Apple finally made tabbed windowing a part of the system. Seems to me the right place to ask for this is from the OS, rather than individual developers (who must all then reinvent the wheel independently).
One advantage to the implementation being outside of software is that, depending on how it is designed, you may be able to mix and match programs into the same window. Personally I’ve always found that to be the more desirable option than stacking windows from the same program together, anyway. Having a command line shell attached to a text editor for instance, is extremely handy if you’re developing scripts.
At any rate, I just thought it worth pointing out that this is not a new request, and it’s been denied since at least 2009, before the Windows version even existed.
Yeah, that’s a pretty nice option, I’ve always made use of it myself. If you leave the mouse pointer over the application name you’ll even get a popup with thumbnails that can make it easier to select which window you want. I can’t imagine the efficiency of that approach is much different than moving that interface to the top of the window and subtracting from the view height in order to do so. Either way you’re going to have a linear switch (which can already be done with Ctrl+(Shift)+F4) or mouse-based point and click to change.