BIG Opportunity for Scrivener!

[PJS]

Some of you nay-sayers are just a bit too quick to dismiss what is unmistakably the art form of the future, and the not-so-distant future at that. I mean, of course, that grand assemblage of prose, poetry, music, dance, architecture, sculpture, music, and painting, for which a single definitive term has not yet been agreed upon. (Well, it has been established, but has not yet been fully accepted by a few recalcitrants, mostly architects and musicians. But you know what sort they are.)

The only sticking point for full implementation, as I understand it, is the attitude of IT folk, who want their contribution acknowledged as an art form. Opponents — and they are many — argue that IT cannot be both an art and a science; its practitioners will have to decide one way or the other.

But yes, Keith, continue your secret plan — oh, some of us do know about it — to bring sculptors and dancers into Scrivener. Let us gather together, and generate one great all-encompassing creative form.

We shall call it ART.

phil

[Jaysen]

phil

Being ... you ... again. tsk tsk tsk.

[Kit_L]

I totally understand that it's noobs like me that want the capacity to handle video as well as text. But in my case I have come here because I recognise that Scrivener has some extremely powerful tools for generating text—but my market (just as an example) demands text, images and video, all in the same container.

I have three published books, but because mine are self-help and PhD length (100,000+ words) with titles like "Overcome neck & back pain", all my writing and video producing career I have had to separately make and market the essential videos that make learning exercise techniques so much easier. I produce all my own material (images and video) and I want a program that has the text-generating power of Scrivener AND the capacity to roughly lay out images and videos too.

I did have a look at Prezi before posting here; it's not that kind of presentation I am after. The videos I make simply show the how; the images and cues are the précis reminder for later home practise, and the words mount the arguments and research that supports it all. These three ways of presenting the ideas cater to the rapidly changing and different learning methods people have, too. Personally, I can learn from a written description of how to do something with a few photos, and most here clearly can, too—but my experience of presenting workshops over ten years internationally tells me our tribe is shrinking. So, we need to be able to communicate potentially useful ideas in multiple ways, at the same time.

Accordingly, I just posted over at the Zen/scenarios thread, asking if Scrivener is the right software for my next project. If Scrivener is not the program, I will sincerely appreciate any suggestions.

[FredInChina]

Thank you for posting this Kit_L; I agree there is a need for a good tool to publish what you do - yes, I know who you are & what you do - I'll be following this discussion with great interest.

[Kit_L]

Thanks Fred,

No responses from the gurus yet, but I am hopeful.

More detail: I have been in contact with my tech guy in Arizona; because all our images (like in any decent database setup) have discreet names (tho' totally non-descriptive of content!), I can simply copy and paste these file names from my image catalogues and place top LHS of exercise page; I will be sending the resized originals via WeTransfer (a great, free service) and he will write a little program to pull these 'tags' out of the Scrivener output file and pull the originals from another container, and place into InDesign which he feels will be the simplest way to do the final layup.

As for video, I can use the same approach, this way: I will give each video an exercise number and name descriptor, and the same program can pull these into InDesign, too. I think it will work OK.

The capacity, though, to see a thumbnail in the Scrivener files themselves would be so so helpful (we were one of the first authors to use a visual index; we can identify things so much faster by an image than by a name) and the geek in me resists renaming anything: errors lie that way. If my tech can visually confirm that the right file has been pulled into InDesign, we are good to go.

Can Scrivener pull a thumbnail out of the Research folder during the compilation process and add that lo-rez thumb to the output file—if it could do that, then my guy's job in AZ would be so much easier.

Sorry about all the noob questions, but I do not want to learn yet another program if there is a better one available. TIA, kl

[AmberV]

Can Scrivener pull a thumbnail out of the Research folder during the compilation process and add that lo-rez thumb to the output file—if it could do that, then my guy's job in AZ would be so much easier.

If that is what you need, beyond skimming §15.5 in the user manual PDF (starting on pg. 215), you might want to give particular notice to §15.5.4, which explains the image placeholder system. Using this you can type in the name of an image using a simple "syntax". During compile, Scrivener will attempt to locate the image either in the Binder, or anywhere your computer can access (typically a local drive, but the possibilities are endless).

I'm not sure if that fits with what you were asking in the paragraph prior to the quoted one above, because this will literally just be a text phrase in your document, not a thumbnail, but the end result will be an embedded graphic.

[Kit_L]

AmberV, that is very helpful.

I am working my way though the User's Manual presently; and I came across this:

Store Any Kind of File: You can now drag and store any type of file into your binder and load it in an external editor that supports that file type. Unlike references, these files will be stored in your project, turning it into a hub for all your file types.

(p.28)

If I can develop a simple workflow to use placeholders (even if via image placeholder text names, and the images themselves only be visible after performing a Compile), then one problem is potentially solved. I shoot all my own images, and make my own videos, too, so always have access to the actual media. I just read that section you pointed me to; v. helpful to be able to specify the image size for the Output document (and not needing to make a version to fit). I will keep digging in to this.

BTW, I have come across one typo, and one unfinished sentence in the User's manual, so far. Is there a thread where I can pass this info. on? Thank you

[AmberV]

There isn’t a formal thread for documentation errors, but I take care of the manual, so feel free to PM me with those. Don’t go out of your way though—I’m in the middle of a fairly large sweep of it.

[daodeuz]

Yes. This most certainly is a Big Opportunity for Scrivener. Think people. Think!

One of the great and almighty veterans said "no newbies" on this thread. Not only am I a newbie, I haven't even completely decided to start using Scrivener yet. So excuse me for not obeying one of the authorities of this forum. However, I've spent some time learning Scrivener and it appears to be incredible, but... though I would love to join your ranks as an author, I'm also a marketing professional.

I would sure hate to spend all that time and energy pouring my heart out on a book and self publishing it as a Kindle Edition only to have it buried never to be found. Amazon and Kindle now have an "Enhanced Edition" section which means that if your book has an audio or video embedded.... it's "enhanced". Is it just too difficult for you old school authors not to see the possibilities here?

If we could easily add short clips of media such as audio and video, Hello!, we are now being searched in the new hot Enhanced Edition section of Amazon Kindle Ebooks. Think out of the box my creative friends, one small interview, one short demonstration, or one tiny moving visual will instantly give your work of art another channel to be found because it will now be advertised and exposed in an entire additional area of where people are searching for ebooks that add just a little bit more.

Since Scrivener already compiles epub, mobi, kindle, html, multimarkdown, doc, and seemingly everything else, duh... html5 is just the next step in html. This would add crazy value to the apparently already super valuable piece of software called Scrivener that is like nothing I've ever seen.

Of course, this is all easy for me to say. What it would take to add this feature may be a lot more difficult than I could imagine and maybe Scrivener doesn't have the resources. (It's crazy affordable. Geez, how do they make a profit?) But if they could, please, please please make it so that it could add audio and video media with HTML5 too.

Oh, and yes, even fiction authors could score on this. With just a pinch of imagination a clever author could add a brief audio clip and instantly get added exposure. What makes that so exciting is that apparently most authors are so orthodox and stuck in a box that only the few that have any marketing savvy at all will bother with it. As we speak there are so few books now, even childrens books that are not yet taking advantage of this crazy new and exciting channel that those of us that jump on this might just make the difference. Especially if you are new to writing books. I pray my work doesn't get lost in the zillion of other books in my genre just because I can't figure out how to add a simple audio interview or a demonstration that would take minutes to video tape and upload to my hard drive.

Please Scrivener. Be the leader here too. So far, you seem to have created something like nothing else for authors. This one addition really could be a BIG Opportunity for all of those that read this forum and use your gift to us.

[jstovell]

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, you can insert placeholders for images, videos, and audio files into your text, and those files will be inserted when you compile.

As for compiling to HTML5, if Scrivener's HTML4 output does not quite meet your needs you could always just download and install this command line tool (yes, you'll need to use Terminal on your Mac, but they provide you with some simple directions) and then use it to coerce the HTML4 to HTML5.

[AmberV]

I use Balthisar Tidy as a front end. You can set up the defaults and for many things just drop code in and take the clean stuff out. Every web developer/publisher should have access to Tidy.

[jstovell]

Ah, very nice! Thanks, Ioa.