Files and Folders vs Outlining

[KB]

Hello,

I'm currently in the process of streamlining - and therefore redesigning sections of - Scrivener.

One thing I am adding is better outlining capabilities. One user has pointed out that having files and folders restricts outlining, because you have to decide in advance whether or not something is going to be a file or a folder.

I am wondering how other people feel - would you prefer folders to go altogether? That is, instead of having folders, you could just organise text files hierarchically, so that there would be no distinction between a text file and a folder. I can think of pros and cons for this:

Pros - you could brainstorm an idea for a chapter as a text document, and then add sub-ideas that are organised hierarchically beneath it. Outlining would be more flexible, because you wouldn't have to think in advance, "I will make chapters group documents and with descriptive synopses, and then add text documents as scenes within them." You could write text for a chapter, then add sub-scenes. Etc.

Cons - there would be no visual distinction between files and folders. Everything would look like a text file (excepting images etc, of course). In the new version, where the storyboard is brought up by clicking on a folder in the binder, accessing the storyboard would become more complicated - there would need to be a control for toggling between text and sub-documents viewed as storyboards.

Your opinions would be much appreciated. I will be making a decision over the next couple of days, so please give me input if you care one way or the other!

Thanks in advance,
Keith

[rayz]

Can't you change the icon for anything that has an object below it?

Instead of a folder, use a stack of documents, then a single document for the icons below it.


I'd prefer the outliner by the way.

[shorn]

As an example of one approach to this question, look at Hog Bay Notebook (I have yet to use Mori much). In Hog Bay any text can be turned into a folder and vice versa. The only difference seems to be whether or not it appears in the folder list in the upper left pane of the main window. Folders do appear there, texts do not If you change a text to a folder it will then appear in the folder list. If you change a folder to a text it will disappear from the folder list. If a text has sub-texts it has a disclosure triangle, just like a folder.

There is visual feedback telling you if a folder itself has text (the folder icon is darker) or if a document has no text (the document icon is blank). In other words, there could still be a visual distinction between files and folders.

I guess the advantage would be that you could, for example, display your chapters as folders, with sub-scenes as sub-texts that you could order as you liked. I suppose once you were satisfied you could merge the various texts into one.

All this comes down to saying, I don't know how to vote since I like aspects of both approaches. (Can't I have both :-)

(On another point, in Hog Bay you can open any text in its own separate window by clicking on its icon. No longer seems to work in Mori.)

[jan]

I agree with shorn that we should have a poll option for Hog Bay Notebook's use of files and folders :) HBN is not the ideal writer's tool (what with the lack of full-screen mode and draft view), but the way it transcends the difference between outliners and the traditional file/folder metaphor is nothing short of genius.

One could argue that HBN's use of the file/folder metaphor is very unconventional since there is no functional difference between a file and a folder: both can contain text, both can have children or parents, and you can always convert a file to a folder, and vice versa. Actually, the only difference between files and folders is the icon.

If you don't like this, HBN also has an option to hide the icons and use a traditional outline view for your entries. But I found this free-form use of the file/folder metaphor very handy for structuring ideas. HBN makes it very easy to differentiate between larger topics (= folder) and afterthoughts to certain ideas (= file added as a child entry to a file). If an afterthought turns out to be a promising, more capacious idea that starts to demand a life of its own, just convert its icon to a folder and add file entries and afterthoughts to it.

Having a visual distinction between files and folders would be more compatible with my way of working and thinking than traditional outliners, so I voted for the file/folder metaphor. But HBN's combination of these two metaphors seems to be the most flexible and powerful solution.

[bohdanz]

I too have found the ability to use the folders in Draft mode as an outliner really effective.

Before I started using Scrivener I used Omnioutliner for outlining purposes. But the minute I discovered Scrivener, the ability to name my folders with key words has turned out to be a feature that has helped my creative writing process more so than any outliner I've ever used.

Being able to see the folders' names and jump in and out of them instead of constantly stitching to an outliner has been great.

[KB]

Thanks for feedback so far.

It's important to remember that the next version is going to act a little different to the current version with regard to index cards and folders. When clicking on a folder in the binder, the index cards of its subdocuments will be displayed in the main view. Thus it is important that I retain the concept of folders in some form.

So far, I have two thoughts on how to resolve this so that everybody is happy (and that make sense to me) - I think I prefer the second option:

1) Allow files and folders, but also allow documents to have subdocuments. This somewhat blurs the distinction between the two, though. (The only difference would be that folders would not have associated text.)

2) Have two "modes", toggled via the toolbar: "Show groups as folders" and "Show groups as text". With the first option selected, everything would work pretty much as it does now. The only difference would be that whenever creating a document, it would always be a text document. It would only turn into a folder once you added a subdocument to it. In the "as text" mode, groups would look like stacks of paper in the outline view, and would display text when you clicked on them. This way, you would not have to make decisions in advance about whether or not an item is a group or a text document - but you could if you wanted.

Note that although comparisons are inevitable, Hog Bay Notebook and Scrivener are very different programs, and what works for one will not work for the other. For instance, converting a file to a folder just doesn't make sense in Scrivener. A file will display index cards of subdocuments when clicked on in the binder (in the next version). So if you convert a text file to a folder, the text would have to be lost. Option 2) gets around this, though.

More thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Keith

[fgrieser]

Hi.

If it´s EITHER folders OR outlining, I prefer folders. But I´d prefer to have both.

I have been a DOS (and Windows) user for more than 15 years and have gotten used to the folder metaphor. I must admit that I have trouble to understand why it should be so difficult to decide in advance whether I wish to create a file or a folder. And even if I change my mind afterwards, it is not really difficult to rename a folder or file, move a file or create a file or folder.

In fact, the folders in my projects grow and may even change while I work on the project. For a novel, e.g., I might start with these folders: "material" and "scenes", soon an "archive" folder will be added to take up old versions of the scenes (usually each scene is saved in one file, every once in a while I save the current version using a new name, e.g. "intro01", "intro02", etc.). Only the current version of each scene remains in the "scenes" folder. When the "scenes" folder gets filled I create folders such as "act1" or "part1", etc. and move the files to these folders. And so on.

So, folders are essential for me. This is one of the reasons why I do not use Ulysses at the moment (though I paid a lot of money for it hoping they would add folders) - the other reason being Scrivener :-)

As far as outlining is concerned: Right now, I use Storylines and Notemap (on my Windows machine - simply because I have bought it for my daytime job). So I do not really need a full-blown outliner inside Scrivener.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes, Franz

[KB]

Thanks for your input. For me, it's important that Scrivener has some decent outlining features that fit in with everything else, as one of the main ideas is that it is an outliner integrated with a writing organiser, so that you can shift between the two intuitively.

Anyhow, I now think I have the solution. I messed around with Hog Bay Notebook again, and I think I could go with a combination of what that does and my no. 2 idea above. ie:

You would add files and folders in just the same way as you do now. However, there would be a "view folders as text" mode, in which, whenever you clicked on a folder, instead of seeing its contents as index cards, you would see text. You would also be able to convert back and forth between files and folders. If you converted a folder to text, its children would just be "demoted" to be on the same level as the newly converted text document.

This solution should please everyone (though I am sure there will be lots who prefer another implementation ). For the files/folders people, it works just as it does now and you can leave it like that if you wish. For the outliner people, you can view folders as text and convert back and forth, so you never have to plan in advance whether a file should be a file or folder - you can just make an arbitrary choice and change it in a mouse-click.

So, that's the way I'm most likely going to go...

Cheers,
Keith

[jan]

You would add files and folders in just the same way as you do now. However, there would be a "view folders as text" mode, in which, whenever you clicked on a folder, instead of seeing its contents as index cards, you would see text. You would also be able to convert back and forth between files and folders. If you converted a folder to text, its children would just be "demoted" to be on the same level as the newly converted text document.

Sounds like an intriguing idea, but I don't think I fully understand it.

If I understand you correctly, folders (or groups) would act as traditional folders in normal file/folder mode, just like folders in the Finder or in Scrivener 0.2b. They can only contain files but they can not have associated text entries. When I clicked on a folder in "normal" mode, I would see the files it contains as index cards.
But you also say that I would "see text" if I clicked on a folder in "folders as text" mode. What kind of text do you mean? Would I see its contents as a single, continuous text file?

Or do you want to introduce a functional difference between these two modes - one where folders are only containers for files, and a second one where folders can be files themselves, with associated text entries?

And what about sub-folders? When I click on a folder that contains sub-folders, do they get displayed as stacks of index cards in "normal" mode?

In any case, keep it simple.

[KB]

I think I made it sound more complicated than it would be. Let me try to explain better:

Imagine that everything acts the same as it does now, except that there is an option in the toolbar to switch between "Show groups as folders" and "Show groups as text".

With the first option selected, when you click on a folder in the binder on the left, on the right you see the contents of that folder displayed as index cards.

With the "text" option selected, when you click on a folder in the binder on the left, you just see text on the right. In other words, the option in the toolbar just specifies whether, when you click on a folder, you want to see its associated text, or its associated children as index cards.

As a visual indicator of modes, the folders will be displayed as text stacks in the "text mode". So, there is not actually a functional difference - the difference is only in what gets displayed.

I think this will seem a lot simpler in practise. It basically allows for converting between files and folders without losing any information, so that we can have outliner capabilities whilst keeping the folders and files metaphor... Hmm, you'll see what I mean.

Cheers,
Keith

P.S. You can tell that my explanation is not too good when there is more than one smiley in my post...

[shorn]

Keith, I think your last post gets it right. Obviously we will see in practice, but it should satisfy both the "files/folders people" and the "outliner people". And nothing forces anyone to use the other mode if it doesn't correspond to how they work. That calls for at least a single smiley, I think: :-)

[fgrieser]

Hi Keith.

For the files/folders people, it works just as it does now and you can leave it like that if you wish. For the outliner people, you can view folders as text and convert back and forth, so you never have to plan in advance whether a file should be a file or folder - you can just make an arbitrary choice and change it in a mouse-click.

and

Imagine that everything acts the same as it does now, except that there is an option in the toolbar to switch between "Show groups as folders" and "Show groups as text".

With the first option selected, when you click on a folder in the binder on the left, on the right you see the contents of that folder displayed as index cards.

With the "text" option selected, when you click on a folder in the binder on the left, you just see text on the right. In other words, the option in the toolbar just specifies whether, when you click on a folder, you want to see its associated text, or its associated children as index cards.

Sounds good to me.

Thanks, Franz

[rayz]

Okay ... I get it now ... :-)

But will you still be able to edit the 'group' of documents in 'text' mode?

[KB]

But will you still be able to edit the 'group' of documents in 'text' mode?

Not quite sure what you mean by this... The group of subdocuments will appear in the binder as normal, so as usual, you would just click on one of them to edit them. The only difference would be what get displays in the right (in the document view) when you click on a group. In the current beta, if you click on a group, you see the notes of that group on the right (whereas for a normal text document, you see the text). In the next beta, in "text mode", you will see a normal text document on the right when you click on a group (because a group can act as either group or text). When you are in "folder mode", you will see index cards on the right. Hope that makes sense...

[rayz]

In the next beta, in "text mode", you will see a normal text document on the right when you click on a group (because a group can act as either group or text).

Ok, if you click on group, you see the all the text in that group on the right, yes?

Can you edit it?