Scrivener like features or better export of visible items only

For those not using Scrivener, it’s a writing software with a powerful compile feature.

Because Dynalist isn’t a novel writing software it doesn’t have a corkboard but because it has the right sidebar, it simulates the initial view of Scrivener’s binder already.

What’s missing is selective exporting/copy paste aka compiling. In Scrivener’s compile feature, you can export an exclusive set of documents and combine them together so much so that even the naming conventions can be tweaked by folder name or by document name.

With Dynalist’s viewed as article feature combined with its bullet structure - this makes it easier to put comments and footnotes in Dynalist than it does in Scrivener. If only Dynalist can hide certain bullets and exempt it from being exported.

It can already export to visible items only, it would be nice to see the feature made even more powerful by having an article view exclusively set to eliminating/hiding multiple bullet points.

Scrivener also has scrivenings which basically means being able to combine the contents of two documents into one view. It would at least be convenient to be able to combine two documents together easily.

Hmm…maybe I’m overthinking this but the lack of reply may mean I haven’t described the functionality well so here’s a long youtube video about the feature.

Scrivenings is around 20:21

Compile is around 25:42

“compile feature”

  • what does that do exactly? images?

“corkboard”

  • what does that do exactly? images?

“naming conventions”

  • what does that do exactly? images?

“selective exporting/copy”

  • what do you mean? can you show this?

just a tiny bit of clarity would be helplful

  • what are the steps you would do this?

“footnotes”

  • why need this? i don’t understand why, it’s 2017

“hide certain bullets”

  • why? i make my points cos i want to see it, ofc i would want to export everything

“scrivenings”

  • why do you keep using words that nobody understands??
  • why don’t you just show what you’re talking about instead?

“one view”

  • what!?!? do you mean by this?? images?

“scrivener”

  • what’s this?

if you like it so much, im wondering why don’t you use that?

  • what’s wrong with scrivener?

tell me what’s wrong i’ll make it better for you


a simple factual statement that serves as basic elementary advice:

  • please learn how to communicate

hopefully good advice is appreciated


please also donate 1 million, thanks

Sorry, I thought Scrivener is popular enough already that it doesn’t need an introduction.

This is Scrivener:

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

This is a video of how to compile:

This is a corkboard:

This is selective exporting/copy aka export visible items only:

Steps include hide bullet points.
Choose export.
Check export visible items only.

ofc i would want to export everything

Then the feature isn’t for you.

why don’t you just show what you’re talking about instead?

It’s tough to show scrivenings. Imagine two documents that would merge into one view if you click on the parent folder instead of the documents but the two documents don’t actually merge. This makes it convenient to preview how two documents would look if they were to merge into one.

what’s wrong with scrivener?

I didn’t realize the feature section requires there to be something wrong with Scrivener for it to apply to Dynalist but anyways Scrivener does not do bullets well and it doesn’t have a zooming feature.

What it does have is an inspector pane which you can read about more here http://www.writeforapples.com/2014/04/scrivener-using-inspector-pane.html

It’s clunky though in that it requires an extra pane to hide and show notes so I’m typing my impressions (or footnotes/notes/synopsis in Scrivener lingo) out in Dynalist and selectively exporting/copying what I type out and then removing the bullets one by one once I paste it in either Scrivener (which I tried) or Sigil (which I haven’t tried yet)

Brilliant piece of software, Scrivener.

So, to give context where I’m coming from: Evernote. Evernote has taught me the rule that you’re better off working with the current feature set of a program (although in Evernote’s case that was harder as they removed so many features)

From that angle – [quote=“Paul_Keith, post:1, topic:542”]
If only Dynalist can hide certain bullets and exempt it from being exported.
[/quote]

Work with “complete” (CTRL + ENTER). In OPML you can do a search and replace, in rich text you have a visual to remember “hey, lets remove this”

That said, @Erica, I love the simplicity of this implementation:

As for…

I love writing in Dynalist but use it on the bullet level. I can drag bullets around easily and move them in and out of the document at will. This way I have (some) of the capabilities of Scrivener w/o having to wait for other features, some of which may not be useful for a larger customer base.

Very well communicated, @Paul_Keith, and there is indeed no need whatsoever for the program from which you draw inspiration for a feature request to be clunky, defect, or defunct in any way. Excellent feature request.

1 Like