I thought this must be a bug, but after searching about the forums I’m wondering if I have overlooked some setting of if this a design choice that I can’t seem to comprehend the logic of.
I have the trial version, and I have been playing about with the interactive tutorial and all the settings to get an idea if this software will be better than my spreadsheet method.
I switched to Full Screen - billed as a distraction free environment, I think I was told in the blurb that I could just write in here. That’s great news to a WriteMonkey guy btw. Everything went away… but the ruler didn’t go away; the ruler was still there! No worries I thought; I must have missed some setting, and the default setting is just being most annoying. I can find no setting. It seems to me that if the ruler is on in the normal editing mode, then it will be on in full screen mode. But why the ruler? Why does everything else get removed and the ruler have this special status in a distraction free mode that allows it to be present and distracting?
So can someone please either point me at the annoying default setting that I have missed or explain why the ruler is not included when all other controls are either removed or hidden in the bottom pop-up.
After reading back what I’ve written I conclude that this must be a bug.
Hello there,
The ruler will always be shown if you have it active. To get rid of it go to the top menu and select Format / Ruler and click it off. Should you wish to have it on, then once in full screen, use Ctr + shift + R to toggle it on or off. Good luck with your writing.
Be wary of claiming issues are a bug. Generally it is because a user has not read the manual or completed the tutorial.
Thanks for the reply. I’m sure you’ll appreciate my effort to post here first to try and get an understanding of the issue before I made any formal claim of a bug. Also in my post, I made clear that there may be a setting that I had missed or that the design decision was incomprehensible to me; if the latter I guess this would become a ‘suggestion’ for a sanity change rather than a ‘bug report.’
I know about both ways of removing the ruler from the full screen mode; I have both completed the tutorial and read the manual. But I still can’t fathom why the ruler should have this status above say the font or justification or bullet lists, or any number of things that will - or at least probably should - be used much more often than the ruler.
I don’t understand this at all. I still think it must be a bug that people have just accepted as being the norm. So I ask: why is the ruler included in full screen (distraction free) mode if it is not there due to error?
As the paper width is easily adjustable when in full screen mode, there is the facility to bring up the ruler for those who wish to use it. You may have your preferred method of usage, others are different. Scrivener caters for having it available or not.
“I must have missed some setting, and the default setting is just being most annoying.” No, it is not the default. It is just your setting. Choose another if you are so easily annoyed.
If that is your biggest gripe then good luck for all the other issues you may encounter that appear not to be your preferred way of using the software.
I will let this go now and make a suggestion for a change in the correct forum later. I think an addition of a ‘hide ruler in full screen’ setting would be the way to go now, as people are used to this way of things working I would guess.
But this isn’t about my preferred way of using the software, and it is not about me being easily annoyed either: full screen has clearly been added for those who want to only write, and it is billed as such; the software does not need a full screen mode to function completely. No other formatting options are there, as people can easily exit full screen and go to the mode where all the other formatting options - most if not all much more often needed than the ruler - are present. But the ruler is there if it is present in the normal writing and editing mode, and that’s clearly not fitting with the ethos of a distraction free mode. I still think it must have been a coding oversight or is a bug.
You are quite right about that. The intended design is for the appearance of the ruler in full screen to be a discrete setting between standard (and actually in that context per split) and full screen editing. In other words it is available to call upon if you need it while writing in full screen (some people do need it to just write) but it shouldn’t be presented by default under any circumstances, and adjusting whether you see it in full screen should have no impact on whether you see it upon return to the standard editor.
No need to file anything further, you’ve already reached someone that can check the bug list and add it if necessary.
