Two page across view + Lag between keystroke and text appearing on screen

Scrivener Wish List
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Hi all,

I’ve been trying out Scrivener 3 for windows, and there is a lot that I love–but a few key things that are keeping me from being able to buy and use it right now. Rather than just sit on them I thought I might share in case the feedback is helpful, and because I’m guessing others might have similar issues.

For context, I’m a social scientist currently working on a book length project–which is why I’m drawn to so many of Scrivener’s features.

  • First, I notice right away that there is a tiny delay between keystrokes and text appearing in the document in Scrivener. This only happens in Scrivener, not in any other program that I use (Windows 10 on a Microsoft Surface Book, with Scrivener 3.1.1). I’m a fast typer (and think at the pace that I type) so the delay can add up a bit and I end up tripping over myself waiting for characters to appear on screen. For reference this happens even in brand new blank Scrivener projects.

  • Second, I know not everyone likes to work this way, but I am an extremely visual person and it’s much easier for me to work on a project in page view–and right now the lack of multiple pages side-by-side in the Windows version is actually a huge stumbling block for me. I think this is because the kind of writing I do is really self-referential and sequential, building on itself argumentatively, and not being able to see what’s on adjacent pages can make it a challenge–always having to scroll back and forth really interrupts the flow. (I know about the split screen mode but it’s just not quite the same).

My favorite feature of MS Word is being able to see and scroll through 2 or even 3 pages of my text simultaneously; on a big screen I can see a whole sub-section, 5 or 6 pages all at once, which makes my work a lot easier. I wonder if other non-fiction / academic writers feel the same way.

I’ve read on these forums that it’s difficult to develop this feature, which I understand. But just wanted to share that this is something that would actually make me able to purchase and use Scrivener–and I’m guessing others might feel the same way. Hell I would probably pay a lot more than the current asking price for Scrivener if it had this kind of feature.

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Does the lag go away if you drop out of page-layout-view? How big are the documents you have in the editor? Significantly bigger than a chapter, for example? Are there a lot of embedded pictures? Just thinking that the combination of page-layout-view and very large documents (perhaps with significant use of images) might produce the effect you are seeing.

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No the lag is always there, even on blank brand-new scrivener projects, and is exactly the same with and without page view mode.

4

What else do you have running at the same time ? (If anything.)

Also, even though I don’t quite think this could be related (but source of many unpleasantries – so might as well), perhaps try and white list Scrivener in your antivirus. Who knows ? (We’ve seen odder.)

P.S. I expect you’ll get way more replies from people willing to help with the lag than reactions to your wishlist’s wish (nothing to do with the request in itself).
So perhaps it be best to make this thread about troubleshooting, and have the wishlist part of it in a new thread.

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Only running a browser with one tab open–I’m pretty sure this is not a computer resources problem, since it only happens in Scrivener and since I’m barely using 10% of my CPU. This was a problem I had last year when I tried the Beta version of 3 as well.

But for the record, I don’t really need help or advice, since I’m not currently using Scrivener for this project–just wanted to share my experience two cents with the developers.

In my mind the two pages across thing is actually much more significant; I could probably get used to the lag over time–but not worth it for me at the moment.

ok I actually conducted a small experiment just now, just to see if I was imagining the character delay; maybe others could try to replicate if you are also looking for ways to procrastinate on your actual work. :slight_smile:

I set a timer on my smart phone for 10 seconds, then pressed a single letter on the keyboard and held it down for 10 seconds, then compared the number of characters produced in both Word and Scrivener, both in blank brand new projects. I repeated this 10 times, alternating between each program to minimize human error in release time. I also did 5 times at 30 seconds to further minimize the difference between keystroke release times. Here are the data and quick analysis results:

scrivener input data
scrivener input data985×592 20.4 KB

As you can see, in both trials scrivener was slightly slower than word for input; at 10 seconds of typing the difference is between 1 and 2 characters, but at 30 seconds it adds up to more like 40 characters.

However the most interesting thing here (that I didn’t expect) was the the large variability in Scrivener’s input. In other words the average difference in MS Word’s input ability was only about 2 characters (probably just human error); Scrivener’s was much larger–the speed of character input changed significantly, and was really noticeable in the 30 second trials.

So looks like I’m not imagining it, but perhaps it doesn’t happen for everyone on all machines, and apparently doesn’t happen all the time?–and maybe not everyone would find this to be a big issue.

Ok back to actual work now.

Sending good energy to the devs!! hoping two pages across will be ready in time for my next big project.

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The difference between 29.8 and 28.5 per second is a delay of .0016 seconds per character. As a mathematician, I’m often amused at what statisticians think significant means. You need a very different experiment.

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This may not be a computer resources problem, but it is definitely not a common problem, so it likely has something to do with your specific PC configuration.

I was going to suggest this as well. We’ve seen any number of posts on the forum where AVs didn’t play well with Scrivener. The typical symptoms tend to be a bit more drastic than a bit of typing lag time, but it’s an easy test to do, so @jrgkle if you’re still interested in pursuing Scrivener you might want to try it.

Best,
Jim

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