Suggested features for version 1.0

[Jos]

I have been using Scrivener for a few days, and, despite it being a beta version, I find it very stable, and usable in the real world. Some features I'd like to see in the final release:

1. Support for styles in the exported RTF files.
2. The ability to set up margins, and running headers within the Print option in Scrivener.
3. Support for footnotes or endnotes. This would make Scrivener useful for academic writing as well. With this feature I could write everything (fiction and non fiction) in Scrivener.
4. A way to time stamp, and include status and label, in the exported RTF file, or within the Print option in Scrivener.
5. Option to number, and renumber documents automatically.
6. When a search is done, the found term should be highlighted.
7. An option to see at a glance the number of words within each document, and the total words (perhaps adding a row in Statistics).

Keith, you are doing a great job. I had been imagining an app like Scrivener for a long time, and have been very frustrated with other apps. Scrivener, on the other hand, feels completely natural to me.

[Jose]

Author should read Jose (the e with accent mark got lost)

[KB]

Thanks for your kind words about the beta - I am glad that you are enjoying using it. Obviously I cannot fit every user suggestion in for 1.0 (there have been literally hundreds), otherwise 1.0 will never be released. I will address each of your suggestions below:

1. Support for styles in the exported RTF files.

Could you explain what you mean by "styles"? Another user suggested something similar. The RTF exporter uses the default Apple RTF methods (the same ones that TextEdit uses). Full formatting is supported, so I suspect that by "styles" you mean something more complicated.

2. The ability to set up margins, and running headers within the Print option in Scrivener.

This is already in there. Go to Page Setup, then select "Scrivener" from the drop-down menu. You can specify page margins and a header with page numbers for printing in there.

3. Support for footnotes or endnotes. This would make Scrivener useful for academic writing as well. With this feature I could write everything (fiction and non fiction) in Scrivener.

This is a tough one. What I do intend to do is set up an "export as footnotes" option for annotations. I will be looking into this over Christmas when I overhaul the annotations system. The trouble is getting it to export in such a way that other applications recognise them as footnotes. They will probably be very basic endnotes, really. In short, I want to find a way of implementing footnotes, and whilst I hope that some form of footnote system makes 1.0, full-blown footnotes will probably be more of an aim for 2.0.

4. A way to time stamp, and include status and label, in the exported RTF file, or within the Print option in Scrivener.

How would you see this working?

5. Option to number, and renumber documents automatically.

I've played with this idea, but it's a big pain, but I do have a new idea about how to do it. It _might_ make it into 1.0 (I've just put it onto the "to do" list).

6. When a search is done, the found term should be highlighted.

This one won't happen. Reason being, you can search by title, text, synopsis and - from the next beta onwards - tags. It is not possible to highlight all of these. Highlighting text means changing text attributes (note that this is why the DevonThink search feature makes found text read-only, which is annoying). And besides, once you have found a file, it is easy to hit Cmd-F to find the term within the document.

That said, on the "to do" list is "Full-on Xcode-style project search window". Xcode is the Apple programming tool with which most Cocoa programs (including Scrivener) are created, and it has the best text search feature I have seen. On doing a project search, you are presented with window that shows a list of each document containing the search term. If you click on an exposure triangle next to the document title, it opens up a list of extracts (a few words) containing the search term. Click on an extract, and it takes you to that part of the document in the panel below. I hope to add something like this to Scrivener in the future. Not sure if it will make 1.0, but it will hopefully be a 1.x feature...

7. An option to see at a glance the number of words within each document, and the total words (perhaps adding a row in Statistics).

You can already ctrl-click on documents or groups to find the statistics for that document or whole group. And a word count and character count is always visible whilst editing. I am quite happy with the ease of accessing statistics already...

Hope that helps.
Thanks again for taking the time to make suggestions,
Keith

[Jose]

admin said:

1. Support for styles in the exported RTF files.

Could you explain what you mean by "styles"?

Styles are attributes used to format characters and paragraphs. Once you define a style, you can reuse it forever. MS Word introduced them in 1982, and now most apps support styles. Even TextEdit supports Styles, and, as far as I could see, so does Scrivener. But when the text file is exported, every paragraph is tagged as Free Form (Pages) or Normal (MS Word). It would be nice to be able to define at least a Body Text (regular paragraphs), Body Text First (First paragraph), and Section (for headers), and keep them in the exported text.

admin said:

4. A way to time stamp, and include status and label, in the exported RTF file, or within the Print option in Scrivener.

How would you see this working?

Just an option, either in Preferences or in the Export Files option that would allow the inclusion of metadata, such as Time, Date, and Status. This metadata could be either under the main header, or as a footer in the first page. Since I don't write linearly, it helps me a great deal to know when a particular chapter was printed.

Keith, thanks for your prompt reply.

[Jose]

admin said:

2. The ability to set up margins, and running headers within the Print option in Scrivener.

This is already in there. Go to Page Setup, then select "Scrivener" from the drop-down menu. You can specify page margins and a header with page numbers for printing in there.

I hadn't seen it; thanks, Keith. There seems to be a little bug, though. Page Setup accepts different margins, but chops the text when the right margin is bigger than 2.54 cm.

[KB]

Thanks again. I will look into styles. Check out saving RTF from TextEdit - my guess is that you will see the same problem (styles unsaved). If so, it will be difficult, as I am using the same methods for export as TextEdit (Apple's default methods). If TextEdit supports the saving of styles to RTF, then it will be easy for me to implment (TextEdit's source code is available anyway).

I have added your metadata printing and exporting suggestion to the "to do" list. I will overhaul printing and exporting after I have overhauled the text/annotations system, which will be the focus for 0.21b (that is, after I get the next beta, 0.20b, released - hopefully before Christmas).

Thanks for pointing out the minor bug in margins. It was a simple one to fix. The text width was being calculated using only the left margin width x 2, which meant that if the margins had different widths it got clipped. This is fixed for 0.20b.

Cheers,
Keith