Suggestions that have been made [updated 10/03/07]

[Inkling]

Under Construction


This is a quick over view of enhancements and suggestions that get, well, suggested on a very regular basis. Hopefully this will help people focus their suggestions to aspects that may not have been covered yet, and save Keith from having to retype similar answers repeatedly.

I hope this gets a sticky and some aide to create.


Annotation/Footnote Enhancements
"2.0, and not before. Smile The only real thing I want to add to this is to have them collapsible. This is very complicated and would be a massive undertaking, though, so won't happen in the near future. "
PDF Editing
"this is already possible. Select a PDF document in the binder and hit ctrl-cmd-O to open it in Preview. You can then edit the PDF document inside Preview, save it, and return to Scrivener (you will have to reload the PDF document in Scrivener by selecting something else in the binder and going back to it in order to see the changes). Scrivener will never have PDF editing abilities built in, though. " - Scrivener is never intended to replace dedicated applications for things like pdfs and media files.
Advanced Search
"the current search is more than adequate for most purposes. There will no major changes to this in 1.x updates. "
Sente/Endnote/Bookends Integration
"would love to do something about this, but as of yet I have no idea what. This is a future thing."
Add to Scrivener Bookmarklet
"if I had any clue about how to do it, I would. " - i.e. research is in progress!


I will go through and add statuses to each one as time goes on. Please feel free to point out commonly occuring suggestions so I can add them and the Keith Verdict/comments!

[KB]

Well, I can give you a stutus right now.

Annotation/Footnote Enhancements - 2.0, and not before. The only real thing I want to add to this is to have them collapsible. This is very complicated and would be a massive undertaking, though, so won't happen in the near future.

PDF Editing - this is already possible. Select a PDF document in the binder and hit ctrl-cmd-O to open it in Preview. You can then edit the PDF document inside Preview, save it, and return to Scrivener (you will have to reload the PDF document in Scrivener by selecting something else in the binder and going back to it in order to see the changes). Scrivener will never have PDF editing abilities built in, though.

Advanced Search - the current search is more than adequate for most purposes. There will no major changes to this in 1.x updates.

Sente/Endnote/Bookends Integration - would love to do something about this, but as of yet I have no idea what. This is a future thing.

Add to Scrivener Bookmarklet - if I had any clue about how to do it, I would.

Best,
Keith

[AmberV]

I think all you would have to do is provide Scrivener with a thing that receives URL messages. I have no idea how it is done, but I know it can be. For example, I use Pukka to post things to del.icio.us. I put a bookmark in my Firefox toolbar that has this Javascript:

Code: Select all

javascript:document.location.href='pukka:url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&
title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+'&
extended='+encodeURIComponent(window.getSelection());

The first time you click it, Firefox asks permission to launch an external application, and if you permit it, information about the page gets sent to Pukka. CSS edit is another application that can handle these bookmarklets. It is nice for those non-Cocoa browsers that cannot use Services.

I would imagine the parts of interest for Scrivener would be getting the current selection and treating it like an incoming clipping. One could even be made to import the current page, too.

[KB]

The trouble is that I, also, know it can be done but don't have a clue how. I can't find anything in the Cocoa documentation, the Cocoa-dev lists are not really the place for such a question, and I can't find any online info on launching an OS X program from a bookmarklet and accessing its internal methods... Hmm, maybe the webkit mailing list would be a more appropriate place for such a question, so I might ask there.
Best,
Keith

[accentedeuropean]

I'm not sure if this helps, but if by "bookmarklet" you mean 'a bookmark in your browser that you click to get text+url in another application,' Ecto (also a cocoa app) uses this rather complicated-looking javascript:

Code: Select all

javascript: var baseUrl = 'ecto:'; var url=baseUrl;var title=document.title; url=url + 'title=' + encodeURIComponent(title); var currentUrl=document.location.href; url=url + '&url=' + encodeURIComponent(currentUrl); var selectedText; selectedText=getSelection(); if (selectedText != '') url=url + '&text=' + encodeURIComponent(selectedText);document.location.href=url;

The cool thing, I just discovered, as I never use it, is that it copies the url of the page and only the text I selected to Ecto. Anyway, that was my geek-second of the day.

[Inkling]

updated!

I was going to suggest the ecto bookmarklet, as I use that all the time myself

[Gordon]

The first step would be to declare that Scrivener is able to handle a URL. You'd probably want to define a new schema, such as "scriv:"

See LSRegisterURL as a starting point.

[uncarvedblock]

I have two requests/ wish items:

First, having search jump to each found instance would be huge (if there's a way to do this, I haven't found it). For example, I want to do a global change from the character name Heddara to Kafite. Currently, I have to scroll manually through a document that runs anywhere from 60,000 to 200,000 words and find each instance. Not fun.

Second, it would be wonderful to have the search term persist until I cancel it, rather than having it expire after the first instance, so that I have to retype the search after I change each instance of the term I need to replace.

I'm currently using Scrivener on a 60,000 word YA that's due in to the editor at the end of the month. The fact that the manuscript is short makes the process survivable, if onerous. (The reason I'm using Scrivener for a final edit is the Full Screen mode, which has kept me from fiddling with the Internet every time I start getting tired.)

I don't know if these are huge requests or tiny ones, or me trying to take a shoe and use it as a hammer. But I love the program, and would love to be able to work in it for the entire novel-writing process.

[KB]

Hi Holly,

Hopefully I can address these:

First, having search jump to each found instance would be huge (if there's a way to do this, I haven't found it). For example, I want to do a global change from the character name Heddara to Kafite. Currently, I have to scroll manually through a document that runs anywhere from 60,000 to 200,000 words and find each instance. Not fun.

You don't have to search for each instance. Just hit cmd-F to bring up the regular Find panel and use that to search through the text - the idea is that the search field is used to narrow down the documents, and then the regular Find panel is used to go through on an instance-by-instance basis within these documents. Also for a global replace like the one you want, you can just use the Project Replace feature (under the Find menu).

Second, it would be wonderful to have the search term persist until I cancel it, rather than having it expire after the first instance, so that I have to retype the search after I change each instance of the term I need to replace.

Not quite sure what you mean by this. Do you mean the way the search highlight within the text disappears as soon as you start typing? If so, just uncheck "Remove search highlight upon editing" in the Text Editing preferences of the Preferences panel.

Hope that helps.
Best,
Keith

[uncarvedblock]

Hah! That solves it. I'd gone through the documentation, searching for "search and replace", and couldn't find anything. Hadn't found the Find menu.

Nothing like searching for the wrong term.

Thank you.

[NoahShenandoah]

for a global replace like the one you want, you can just use the Project Replace feature (under the Find menu).

. . .
Hope that helps.
Best,
Keith

Am I (unfortunately) correct that the global Replace does NOT replace terms in the folder title text?

Having this feature would be a great improvement to a true Project-wide Replace function.

Noah

[Cougar]

I know you can right-click on a PDF to zoom in/out, but what about adding that slick bezel that you get when viewing PDFs in Safari under Leopard?