When I start a new document in the binder, I would often like to indent or “outdent” it before writing anything at all. Thus, I would like to press CMND & N and then CMND & CTRL & Right to “outdent” it, and then go ahead and start writing. But Scrivener wants me to start the new document, then type something (anything) and then find its place in the hierarchy. Sometimes, I just put in a random character, then go back to the binder, find the place, and then go back and start typing.
On a related matter, is there a reason why ESC doesn’t bring me from the editor to the binder? Would it not be nice if it did?
Obviously, this kind of thing is scarcely a big problem. But they do constitute a kind of distraction. For example, if it hadn’t just happened, I wouldn’t be writing this post, I’d be writing what I’m supposed to be writing. Is there any way to set things up so that these minor distractions might be eliminated?
I’m not quite sure what you mean… You don’t have to start writing anything at all. If you want to out- or indent it first before doing anything else, then you can. When you hit cmd-N in the binder, a new document gets created, with the title selected ready to edit it to something more meaningful than “Untitled”. You can change it or just hit “enter” to end editing, then do the indenting/outdenting. So I’m a bit confused as to the problem.
As for Esc - is there any reason that should take you to the binder? In all OS X text apps, hitting Esc brings up the auto-complete box if there is something that can be completed; I’ve never seen anything use Esc to go to the source list, so I’m not sure why this expectation would be there…
I’ve wanted the same thing: create a new document, indent it, type the new title. (I can do that in OmniOutliner) As it is, I have to create a new document, hit enter, indent it, double click the title, type the new title.
Yes, these expectations come from omnioutliner, I think. I appreciate that they are different applications, and the presence of a Binder changes the story significantly. Nevertheless, as user, I am not thinking about these things… I am just doing what I’m doing.
In omnioutliner you press return to create a new cell. At that point you can indent, outdent, updent or downdent (good words, I’ll submit them to the OED) or type away.
Similarly, if you start typing, but then want to go back to the entry as a whole, in order to move it up or down, in or out, you press ESC and this becomes possible. I know that there’s no binder in OO, but from within the workflow, the situations are equivalent.
Anyway, no worries. It’s not likely that all applications will work the same way. On the other hand, when they do, I love it. I love using an OS X application and trying to do something for the first time with keystrokes and it just working. It’s part of the pleasure of the system.
Ah. Well, OmniOutliner uses a completely custom outliner - they wrote it from the ground up for the sole purposes of outlining. Scrivener, meanwhile, uses a customised version of the generic OS X outline view, which appears in many programs. In this regard, it is OmniOutliner that veers from the “norm” (although to an extent, being the wonderful app it is and also the most popular outliner on the platform, it also sets certain expectations).
Or, you could create the document, type the title (seeing as it already selected for editing), hit enter, then indent it. That would be quicker than refusing to edit the title before indenting and then double-clicking to rename it afterwards - I don’t really understand that step… (And you don’t need to double-click - you can just hit Escape.)
Ultimately, Scrivener is not OmniOutliner… It has a decent outliner and outlining features, but it doesn’t - and can’t - try to compete with OO or to emulate all of that program’s unique functionality. All the same, Scrivener has a number of keyboard shortcuts that enable users to do the things described in this thread quickly and effectively - it just requires certain different habits to OO, and given the different features of Scrivener over all, that is pretty reasonable, I think (as Declan says).
On a side note. Some applications have similar shortcuts / navigation methods and some have completely unique ones. SCR to me follows more of the OSX standards and feels more like an “Apple” application in its GUI and navigation more so than something like Word or OO.
With that in mind sometimes you have to adapt or adjust your method of workflow when using applications because of this.
Myself I like the fact that SCR follows the OSX standards in many of its GUI interactions. It may seem like something to get used to but if you use other Apple Products it starts to feel more like an extension of iWork rather than just a custom Software title.
Another application that uses ESC in a way similar to the one described above is Mellel. There, if you are editing a footnote and want to return to the main text, where the footnote marker is, you hit ESC. In effect, you “escape” from one level to the higher level. This is the case also with omnioutliner, where you “escape” from your item to the higher level.