Quick Reference productivity tweaks

[eric1954]

I was gonna say the Quick Reference is the best thing thing sliced bread. But it's truly so wondrous it's the best thing since garlic naan. (Can't get any kind of naan where I'm waiting for the local COVID-19 lockdown to let up.)

I use QRs to display Notes on a second screen when working on a document in the main Editor or in Composition mode. This is my all day every day Scrivener use, so time saving tweaks are maybe more helpful for me than most Scrivener users. I won't weep if none of them is possible. Like Tantalus, I'll save my tears for garlic naan.

1) Hide Editor — While I can open Notes and pull the Notes window up to increase the visible Notes, there's always a bit of the Editor reserved at the top. Is there a way to get rid of that sliver of Editor window?

2) Change / Save default QR view — It would save time if we could set up the QR view and save it as the default view. That way I could open the QR to my expanded Notes view and not have to select Notes and drag the window up every time.

3) Highlight Current Line — Nice if we could do that in a QR as well as the main Editor.

4) Text colour — We can change the background colour, but not the text colour. So if I'm in Dark mode, I can change the QR Editor or Notes screen to white. But then the Dark mode default white text vanishes. Light background and black text while in Dark is an option for the main Editor, so maybe it can happen in QRs as well.

5) Merge All Windows — Perhaps this is a big ask, but... I'm a disciple of Ioa's super-granularity method of Scrivener composition, so I have dozens of Folders and hundreds of Files in my Projects. It's easy to select a File in the Binder and hit the Space bar to open a QF. When working on a Folder, I can do that multiple times to open all the subsidiary Files, Then I can Merge All Windows to clean up the display. My Wish List item is to pick the Folder and have the option to open all subsidiary Files as tabs in a single QR.

Thanks, Scrivener gurus!

[kewms]

Item 3 is possible already. Turn on the current line highlight for Quick Reference panes with the Scrivener -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Quick Reference -> Options panel.

Katherine

[Silverdragon]

Regarding Item #4:

QR Notes text is affected by Preferences->Appearance->Inspector & Notes. In other words, Notes text will appear exactly the same in the QR panel as you have it set to appear in the Inspector.Text colour is available to tweak in Dark mode.

Hope this helps!

[eric1954]

Thanks for the replies.

kewms… My bad. I didn’t describe No. 3 properly. Since my QR work is almost all in Notes, I was looking for the current line highlight in Notes.

Silverdragon… I was able to make the QR notes black type on white, as long as the Inspector Notes had a light enough background to show black type.

These issues are actually part of a larger editing process question. So I’ve created a new post titled, “The Holy Grail combination of Editor, QRs and Notes”. Please feel free to contribute your obvious expertise!

[Silverdragon]

Yeah you pretty much have to have your Notes background set the same both in Inspector and in QR, or at least darned close. I sometimes wonder why they're separate.

[Marc64]

Yeah you pretty much have to have your Notes background set the same both in Inspector and in QR, or at least darned close. I sometimes wonder why they're separate.

I can have my notes with a white background but not the QR Editor which seems strange unless I'm missing something.

Edited to add: Sorry, should've said, I can change the background to white but there doesn't appear to be an option to change the test colour.