Scrivener Pallets Prevents Hook-linking

I just noticed that when using Scrivener, when I am using a floating pallet, in this case my styles pallet, and I hit the Hook hot key, I get an error. This is on a Scrivener document that has many links and is an active part of my Hook linking.

To clarify, when this occurs I am in an active Scrivener page with a floating styles palette that is not selected. The Styles palette is still visible as it is floating, but it is not very large so I keep it on the screen at times when I am working actively with styles in a Scrivener document window. At such times, with the Scrivener window active, and the styles pallet visible but not active (no colored dots in the upper left of the pallet window), I get the error.

28%20AM

When I close the styles floating pallet, Scrivener works again as before. I am guessing this is a bit of a bug. Just to mention it then.

Hook relies on Scrivener to provide information about the current document (address and name). It appears that in this condition, Scrivener does not provide the information.

Interesting. I never thought about using Scrivener with Hook. I’m using Scrivener for my dissertation and not for business purposes. I’m interested in how our what for you are using Scrivener. I know the data model behind quite well (I’m the author of TeXDown). Could you please share a bit on your integration with Scrivener?

Thank you!

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Sure. I am aware that Scrivener offers the writer a nearly complete solution. I am only using it as a writing tool as a way to separate each section as I assemble my writing. In this way I find it very helpful to control-click the different sections and review how the different sections are flowing together in my writing. I can easily select contiguous or non contiguous sections, so that I can see if I am making the ideas clear that I thought I was making clear, or if I am repeating myself (bad), or clarifying a previous point (good).

At this point I am not using Scrivener for much of what it can do including labels, cork board, or outline view. I stay in scrivenings view, in the shallow end of the pool. I click in the menu bar and do searches quickly throughout my document when I want to find something. I realize that Scrivener can also format its output and, that is probably great. I come from a technical writing background and I used to use Word very well. I no longer feel it is necessary to put up with maintaining a license for Word. Nisus serves me quite well with everything that Word could do. I can’t say it is anything more than sticking with what I am comfortable with.

Just to mention it, Scrivener’s developers also make a very rudimentary mind mapping app, Scapple. I got Scapple early on and have tried to like Scapple but, I just can’t. It is way too simple, IMHO. I found that another app I have takes better care of my mind mapping and list making process, Curio. Curio, like Scrivener, does a great deal more than I am using it for. I don’t have the expertise to go too far into Curio, but it is a great tool for putting together dissertations and other research from a visual perspective as all its work is done on large open whiteboard-like spaces on the Mac.

As to your question of using Hook with Scrivener, you could use Scrivener entirely for your project, place research links in your research area, etc. But if you are working like I am, and you want to access a mind map program from your Scrivener project, use Hook. If you want to access a saved search in HoudahSpot for the associated research already stored on your mac, use Hook. If you use a central project processing and note storing area as I do (I use NVAlt), use Hook.

I discussed my writing process on this forum using Scrivener here.

ADDED: I use a Notes page to link using Hook with Scrivener. Since Scrivener, like most of the apps I use in my writing process (TaskPaper, Nisus, Curio), has no iOS companion app, this is how I make do. I use a specific page in Notes to update with my current writing sample.

I will at regular intervals put what I have written in Scrivener into Notes for viewing or editing on my iPad for a walk about. This happens often in my writing process. I find it pleasant to go outside, walk to a quiet location, and review my ideas. Or, just smoke a cigar while I think (something I don’t like to do at my desk).

I find it useful to hear what I have written, read out loud to me. I actively follow and review the words I have written as they are read aloud and, I often catch errors this way that I would other wise have missed.

I usually bold the paragraphs that contain any edits that I make on iPad Notes so I will easily notice the changes when I resync with my Mac. After Notes syncs back to my Mac, I can copy the changes I just made to the text, back to my Scrivener document.

Or, sometimes I will print out the pages I am editing as well as pasting them into Notes. As I hear the iPad speaking the text aloud, I follow along on hard copy (pages) and I make edits on the printed pages. Then I take those edits back to my Mac and enter the changes individually into Scrivener.

That’s very interesting. I have written / spoken about my Scrivener research workflow here. I’ve started using Hook now with Scrivener for ordinary project work, and it seems interesting. I’ve by far too many different sources of information flying around, and Scrivener could be a good “Zettelkasten.”

For Mindmapping, the best tool I’ve found so far is MindNode. The author is very co-operative, and the tool is leaving you all the freedom.

I’ve tried to integrate with Notability, but that’s probably failing because of the shortcomings of Notability. The basic idea would be to create, e.g. on the iPad, meeting notes in Notability. Then those will sync up to your Mac using iCloud. There, you would just create a hook link to the file.

In theory. In practice, Notability doesn’t interact with Hook, and is not scriptable. So you don’t have an URL scheme for Notability. But even without, since the files are synced over using iCloud, I located the folder where these files are stored, and then created a Hook link to a given file. That does work somewhat, but not really: Notability will open on the Mac, the right file will be opened, but actually a copy of that file will be created immediately. So you end up looking at the copy, rather than the original. There also is a Webdav backup option for Notability, which I tried; but that again works only from the point of view of the Mac application (which has to be running to do the backup), and then, again, it will only open a copy of the file.

I offer the following thread link not because I am selling the idea of Curio, but from what you said, this might be of interest. Curio is one of those apps that is quite unique and at the same time, rather advanced in what it allows you to do.

I cannot speak to the certainty that Curio could help in your process as I myself cannot fully grasp the intricacies of what some people are using Curio for. However, I observe that many of them are professors, are scholarly, and are in general discussing similar processes to your own dissertation.

This seems to be of particular interest to those using active research tools such as Zotero, which is the theme that started the linked thread. But the thread is also discussing similar options to Zotero, and of how Curio can integrate with those apps, etc.

Point being this all appears to apply to academic writing and dissertations, writing where assembling a great deal of information and documentation to support the information you are trying to resolve and then present to others, can be placed at your fingertips - so long as you have a thousand fingers. :wink:

Thanks for that suggestion. I’ve had a look at Curio, and it seems to be very similar to what I’m doing with Scrivener; I think I’ll stick with Scrivener for the moment.

Thanks anyways!

After you said that you wrote TeXDown I searched YouTube and found and watched the video you linked. Congratulations, that was some good work.

I think this comes down to the basic idea of how many of us prefer to work with our writing on the Mac - or on Windows or Linux I suppose but I am only using a Mac at this point.

This could easily become a longer thread than I have time for at the moment - although the idea of learning and of different learning styles deeply interests me.

I believe at one point I heard in that video your comments that learning to use Word to format was … a nightmare, a headache… something similar? That gave me some small insight as to why, perhaps, some people are such strong proponents of markup and similar text defined environments (LaTex) which are meant to style what you have written at a later time and date from when you are actually writing it.

Meaning no insult to anyone using this methodology, I can’t stand working that way. For me, seeing the structure as I am writing it informs my brain as to where I am in my writing process. When I select a word and bold it, I don’t want to see asterix surrounding the word, I want to see the word bolded.

But, that is just me, my way of organizing visually, and I admit that it is based on some level of expertise using Word. The idea of using styles in Word (or Nisus, or Scrivener) is how a Table of Content is created and how I can tell if all my ideas are in the order that I thought they were in. Using styles is also an easy way to put any part of my writing in order - or back in order after I pasted it into Notes, edited some text, bolded parts of the text, and want to put things back in order in my Scrivener document.

I too enjoy using code. I have used it for web design and for database design. But for my writing, I want to see what I write, when I write it, not later. Again, this is just an observation based on my own learning style and I do not wish to offend or suggest in any way that my way is better than anyone else’s way.

I’m totally with you. As a programmer, and a like 25 year user of LaTeX, I’m used to seeing the markup with what I write, but one of the background ideas that I’ve in TeXDown was that at least for simple things - like, for example, bold and italics, it’ll pick those up from the RTF and then convert them into the corresponding TeX commands itself. It does that, though I don’t actually speak about it (I think, it’s a long time since I’ve recorded that video). And the same goes for footnotes. Scrivener allows to add footnotes, and hence I pick them up from the RTF files. It’s not perfect, because I’m actually plain text parsing the RTF, but it works most of the time. I also automatically detect itemizes (bullets).

In the video, I don’t show it, but I’ve come around to using styles for the different levels of my headings. Again, that’s not really automatic, as it should also reorder things once I throw things around in my hierarchy, but for the moment, it was good enough.

So yes, I do think that visuals matter there - since I’m using TeXDown, I’m using a lot less LaTeX commands, and what I’m writing looks a lot cleaner. I even created a way to integrate with MathType, so that in Scrivener I see the formula, and then yet TeX will still understand it (as I basically have the formula behind the formula under the formula)…

Everyone has his own preferred working style, and as long as it works, that’s great.

For my research, the workflow is great; I’m now working on the idea to use Hook to integrate Scrivener with a whole lot of other applications that I use for managing a larger project.

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There are a number of Mac apps that allow you to write in MarkDown while also visually styling the text as you write. That way you get to see your writing structure more easily than looking at the raw Markdown, but you get all the multiple-export and other benefits of Markdown.

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Yep, and true to my kind of distorted character, I was looking at Scrivener’s integrations with Markdown and thought, well, that’s making it more complicated than what I really need for creating input to LaTeX. Hence I wrote TeXDown :slight_smile:

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@stevelw I am happy that some people work in a manner that see many benefits from working in Markdown. For these people, Markdown must be gratifying indeed. Some do love it and swear by it.

I am not one of those who sees a benefit to Markdown. I even purchased a license for Marked 2, in part to say thanks to the developer of NVAlt. But it was never of any use to me.

I don’t wish to enter an argument about Markdown. I am a believer in live, and let live. I see no benefits to Markdown. because, Markdown does not support the way I like to write.

When I embraced Hook, I did so because I realized that Hook can link, almost without exception, any document to as many other documents as I can think of to link. So yes, whatever you are working in in Scrivener can link to any other document, or web page, or application, or launch a script if it was saved as a stand alone file.

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https://discourse.hookproductivity.com/t/scrivener-pallets-prevents-hook-linking/732
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