A multi-item wishlist here (please don't cringe!)

[kco]

Keith, let me just say up front that the longer I use Scrivener (and I'm gaining on two weeks now), the more I'm thrilled with it. Wonderful interface—intuitive, elegant, and it mirrors much of the way I prefer to work. I love love love the split screen capability--I often did this in Word, and being able to see two docs/scenes, .pdfs or webpages as I write is fantastic.

So please don't let the following wishes throw you. I know you're working hard to get out the next release, and that even if you like things on this list, it may be a while before you get to them! Also, though I looked through the wish list and to do lists, I may have missed it if some of these have been brought up before.

My wishes, big and small:

- Things that would make Scrivener much more compatible with printing and exporting for manuscript submission:

(1) Being able to format the first page of chapters when printing or exporting—e.g., options to
(a) insert X number of blank lines before a new chapter/folder title
(b) center that title
(c) begin the following document/scene 2 lines below the chapter/folder title
(d) exclude document titles from export/printing. My docs are individual scenes, and I wouldn't want my scene titles included in the manuscript. (Folders/chapters yes, documents/scenes no.) As it is now, it looks like I'll have to go in and manually delete each scene title--and there are a lot of scenes in a 400-page novel. Perhaps this could be a user preference about what "level" of doc/folder names get exported/printed?
(e) separate the text of different docs with a symbol or user-selectable mark. (Since I use separate docs for each scene, automatically inserting a # or # # # between documents would separate the scenes properly for a manuscript.)
(f) as a couple of us mentioned on the templates thread, being able to print in standard Courier 12, one-inch margins, 25 lines per page (without changing screen format preferences) would be awesome!

I think I mentioned WriteWay Pro (which is PC only, boo) in a previous thread. It has a nice set of prefs for printing/export that you could check out.

(2) Instead of the "Page Break After" option that exists now, how about Page Break Before? In the checklist, it's easier to spot new chapters/folders than to locate the last scene/doc of a chapter/folder—also, scenes/docs may get moved around within folders/chapters, but I'd always want a page break before a new chapter/folder. (Am I making sense here?)

Some other stuff:

- Not sure if this was already discussed, and I saw somewhere that you're considering changing up the annotation/notes, but I'd love a window/space that lists all annotations for a document. And when you click on a note in that view, it could take you (in a separate window, perhaps the main one) to the location of the annotation in the document.

- Scrivener uses bold, italics, underlining, etc.—could you add strikethrough? While I'm NaNo-ing, I italicize things I know I'll take out later—but strikethrough would be a more natural way to see this.

- I see that you have goal meters of some sort on your list of future features. WriteWay Pro has a nice set of project graphs and stats you might want to look at for ideas. You tell it your word or page goals for a project, the due date, and how much you've already completed, and it constructs v. helpful bar graphs and circle charts of your ongoing progress, the average pace you need to maintain, etc. It updates the stats to help make sure you know how many words/pages you'll need each day, even if you go off track. I bet you could make this concept very elegant and Tiger-like!

- It would be nice to be able to select a section of text and get a word count/stats for it.

- Speaking of word counts, could we have the option of seeing them in outline view (or elsewhere) for each document, all at once? My idea is that we'd be able to see how long a document or folder is and thereby spot whether some scenes or chapters are overly long/short.

- In dual-doc mode, I'd like the ruler and its formatting features to be available for both documents. As it stands, it seems that I can only change the line spacing, etc., for the top doc.

- Especially in Compose mode, I'd like to be able to select, drag and drop sections of text.

- The "word frequency" stat is very helpful. Is it possible to get the word frequencies for the entire draft?

- Ability to set line spacing from the Format menu.

Whew! I hope there are at least a few things in there that seem useful AND easy to implement. And in any case, thanks for a GREAT app, Keith!

[KB]

Thanks for the multitude of suggestions. Glad you're liking Scrivener anyway! I think you might have missed some of these even in the version you are using; some of the others will make it into a future beta in some form or other. To address them one by one:

(1) Being able to format the first page of chapters when printing or exporting—e.g., options to
(a) insert X number of blank lines before a new chapter/folder title
(b) center that title
(c) begin the following document/scene 2 lines below the chapter/folder title
(d) exclude document titles from export/printing. My docs are individual scenes, and I wouldn't want my scene titles included in the manuscript. (Folders/chapters yes, documents/scenes no.) As it is now, it looks like I'll have to go in and manually delete each scene title--and there are a lot of scenes in a 400-page novel. Perhaps this could be a user preference about what "level" of doc/folder names get exported/printed?
(e) separate the text of different docs with a symbol or user-selectable mark. (Since I use separate docs for each scene, automatically inserting a # or # # # between documents would separate the scenes properly for a manuscript.)
(f) as a couple of us mentioned on the templates thread, being able to print in standard Courier 12, one-inch margins, 25 lines per page (without changing screen format preferences) would be awesome!
...
(2) Instead of the "Page Break After" option that exists now, how about Page Break Before? In the checklist, it's easier to spot new chapters/folders than to locate the last scene/doc of a chapter/folder—also, scenes/docs may get moved around within folders/chapters, but I'd always want a page break before a new chapter/folder. (Am I making sense here?)

Printing and exporting will be revamped in a future beta, and some of this will make it in there. I will certainly consider your "Page Break Before" suggestion. Note that you can already exclude document titles from the Export by unchecking the appropriate checkbox in the "Export Draft" panel. In a future version, you may be able to specify this on a document-by-document basis.

One thing to note, however, is that I never really intended Scrivener to be used for final formatting. It is expected that users will export to a Word Processor for this final part of the process.

- Not sure if this was already discussed, and I saw somewhere that you're considering changing up the annotation/notes, but I'd love a window/space that lists all annotations for a document. And when you click on a note in that view, it could take you (in a separate window, perhaps the main one) to the location of the annotation in the document.

The annotations system is indeed going to be overhauled. Someone else suggested such a list, but I'm not sure about it as yet. It's highly unlikely to make 1.0, at least. It's not that it's not a good idea; it's rather a problem of implementation. Supposing you had 400 documents with annotations: every time you opened the list, it would have to parse through every document and look for notes. Caching the list would be awkward because it would need updating every time text was changed... So it's a "we'll see in the future" for that one, I'm afraid.

- Scrivener uses bold, italics, underlining, etc.—could you add strikethrough? While I'm NaNo-ing, I italicize things I know I'll take out later—but strikethrough would be a more natural way to see this.

Scrivener already has strikethrough. As with any OS X program, just open the Font panel (Format menu or Cmd-T) to access it.

- I see that you have goal meters of some sort on your list of future features. WriteWay Pro has a nice set of project graphs and stats you might want to look at for ideas. You tell it your word or page goals for a project, the due date, and how much you've already completed, and it constructs v. helpful bar graphs and circle charts of your ongoing progress, the average pace you need to maintain, etc. It updates the stats to help make sure you know how many words/pages you'll need each day, even if you go off track. I bet you could make this concept very elegant and Tiger-like!

I will check it out - sounds interesting. For now I have implemented a checkpoint system, which you will see in the next beta.

- It would be nice to be able to select a section of text and get a word count/stats for it.

You can already do this. Just select some text and ctrl-click. At the bottom of the contextual menu is a word/character count.

- Speaking of word counts, could we have the option of seeing them in outline view (or elsewhere) for each document, all at once? My idea is that we'd be able to see how long a document or folder is and thereby spot whether some scenes or chapters are overly long/short.

Likewise, you can already do this. Just ctrl-click on an item in the outline view to see the word/character count at the bottom of the contextual menu. If you ctrl-click on a folder, you will get the statistics for its contents; if you ctrl-click on multiple items, you will get their total.

- In dual-doc mode, I'd like the ruler and its formatting features to be available for both documents. As it stands, it seems that I can only change the line spacing, etc., for the top doc.

I don't quite understand you - this works fine for both documents for me. Just go to Format > Text > Show Ruler. Of course, you will need to do the same for both documents (that is, while the cursor is in each) to get the ruler to show in both, which is exactly how it should work.

- Especially in Compose mode, I'd like to be able to select, drag and drop sections of text

Er, again, I'm really confused here - you already can. Select text, then place the cursor over it, click and drag. Is this not working for you? This is OS X behaviour and there is nothing I am doing to override it...

- The "word frequency" stat is very helpful. Is it possible to get the word frequencies for the entire draft?

What's wrong with just opening up the "word frequency" panel while you are in Draft view? That way you _will_ get the word frequencies for the entire draft.

- Ability to set line spacing from the Format menu.

That's not standard OS X behaviour - you set line spacing via the ruler. Show the ruler and set it from there. (Believe it or not, there is actually no way to open the "line spacing" panel other than via the ruler; that is, Apple have not yet provided a way for developers to access it.)

Hope that answers your queries. Please let me know if that all makes sense to you, because half of them should already be in there. And like I say, the rest are pretty much on the way in some shape or other, though not all will make it in there for some time yet.

Thanks!
Keith

[kco]

Hi Keith! Thanks for the informative answer, and it's great to know many of these things are already available.

admin said:

Printing and exporting will be revamped in a future beta, and some of this will make it in there. I will certainly consider your "Page Break Before" suggestion. Note that you can already exclude document titles from the Export by unchecking the appropriate checkbox in the "Export Draft" panel.

This is true, but then it deletes folder(/chapter) titles as well as doc(/scene) titles. However, hmm...If I always excluded those titles, and then wrote my own "Chapter One" or whatever into the first doc/scene of a chapter, I could add in my own nine blank lines above the chapter title, etc., the way I like it... Though that would remove a benefit of having the outline/binder view: being able to easily reorder docs/scenes within a folder/chapter.

One thing to note, however, is that I never really intended Scrivener to be used for final formatting. It is expected that users will export to a Word Processor for this final part of the process.

I get that, no problem. I guess I'm thinking of things that would make that exporting and reformatting process less dread-filled for large documents. The smoother the transition, the more likely a potential customer will commit their precious novel to your application.

Your cautions about the annotation system are duly noted. I'm looking forward to playing with the overhauled version.

Scrivener already has strikethrough. As with any OS X program, just open the Font panel (Format menu or Cmd-T) to access it.

Cool! Guess I was hoping to be able to do that from the Format menu, but it sounds like your hands are tied by the OS on that one(?)

RE word counts for a text selection:

You can already do this. Just select some text and ctrl-click. At the bottom of the contextual menu is a word/character count.

Good to know!

RE word counts for multiple documents:

Likewise, you can already do this. Just ctrl-click on an item in the outline view to see the word/character count at the bottom of the contextual menu. If you ctrl-click on a folder, you will get the statistics for its contents; if you ctrl-click on multiple items, you will get their total.

Actually, I was hoping to see the statistics for every document in the draft all at the same time, rather than one-by-one. Would this be possible?


RE dragging and dropping selections within a doc:

Er, again, I'm really confused here - you already can. Select text, then place the cursor over it, click and drag. Is this not working for you? This is OS X behaviour and there is nothing I am doing to override it...

I'm feeling foolish now--I only upgraded to Tiger so I could use Scrivener, and was expecting to see something like in Word X, where you select something and the cursor changes from an I-bar to an arrow. Okay, user error here.

- What's wrong with just opening up the "word frequency" panel while you are in Draft view? That way you _will_ get the word frequencies for the entire draft.

Nothing wrong with that at all. Just didn't know how to do it, LOL. I find myself working most often in Compose mode, rather than Draft.

Anyway, thanks again!

[KB]

Actually, I was hoping to see the statistics for every document in the draft all at the same time, rather than one-by-one. Would this be possible?

You can see all stats in the table in Binder view. Just click on the Draft folder in the outline view, then make sure the table is visible on the right (eg. by dragging down the splitter). Word and character count is shown for every document (note the table only shows *saved* statistics - that is the statistics of a document when it was last saved).

Hope that helps!