Downloaded Scrivener for the first time a couple of hours ago; I must say, I am thoroughly impressed! However, I ran into some issues importing and using some HTML documentation, so I thought I’d post here.
The problem is that I seem unable to use the internal relative HTML links of the imported HTML files to work with the files entirely within Scrivener. I double checked and the links in Scrivener’s webarchive files are indeed relative; however, when I click on an HTML link within Scrivener, the original file, and not Scrivener’s imported copy, is opened in my browser.
Please tell me there is a way to work with relative HTML links in Scrivener without being kicked over to my browser. The goal is to work in split mode, accessing the HTML documentation in the upper pane while typing in the lower pane.
Off-hand, I would say that would be a difficult scenario for Scrivener to address. Those HTML links would have to be regenerated relative to the internals of the Scrivener project bundle, and how would it know the new internal name of the linked to document, or indeed if it even exists at all in the project bundle. Compounding this problem is that Web Archive files seem to be somewhat “black box.” They cannot just be opened up like an ordinary bundle and edited. Perhaps there is a developer’s toolkit for accessing them, but to me they look binary. I have no idea why Apple decided to go this direction with them – content protection or some such nonsense, probably.
Looking at the package contents again, I can see what you mean. The files have been converted to numbered webarchives with no corresponding title, so the internal links no longer refer to anything meaningful.
Thank you for elaborating. Guess I’ll need to find another method for dealing with my mixed PDF/HTML documentation library!
Yes, there are numerous problems here. I used to allow internal navigation, but quickly realised that I would pretty much have to create my own Safari-grade web browser within Scrivener for it to be really worthwhile. Consider, for instance, what happens if you click on a file to download - Scrivener would have to handle downloads. And it would also need back buttons, refresh pages and so forth. So, in the end I just decided to have it open a browser that could handle all of these things whenever you click on a link.