5. Writing in Full Screen

Scrivener has so many features and options that it’s easy to get caught up tweaking preference settings, moving index cards around on the Corkboard, and adding meta-data in the Inspector. If you ever sought an application that secretly supported your procrastination habit under the guise of getting work done, Scrivener is it. At some point, however, you must hone in on your manuscript.

Composition mode, called Full Screen mode in Scrivener for Windows, was made to eliminate onscreen distractions and provide a very simple interface—an editing screen and a cursor. So, get typing!

Composition mode opens whichever document or Scrivenings is in the active Editor. If you want to work on a single scene, select that scene in the Binder, Corkboard, or Outliner view before you launch Composition mode. If you want to work on a group of documents, select a container or a group of selected documents in the Binder and then click the Scrivenings button in the Group View Mode grouping on the toolbar (or select View, Scrivenings from the menu) before you launch Composition mode.

Composition mode, shown in Figure 5.1, consists of a single Editor and a Control Strip. Notice the absence of menus, toolbars, sidebars, Rulers, or Format bars. After appearing on the screen when you initially enter the mode, even the Control Strip disappears, leaving you with just a large screen on which to type.

Figure 5.1 The Composition mode display lets you focus completely on your text.

As you can see in Figure 5.1, the default background is solid black, with gray paper and black text. Although this certainly blocks everything out, it’s a rather bland working environment. Fortunately, you can customize the appearance of all the elements in Composition mode from the Compose tab in the Preferences window (the Appearance tab in the Options window in Windows). The Background can be customized with either a solid color or a texture. The Paper can be customized with a solid color in Windows or with a solid color or texture on the Mac. You can also change the text color to make it readable against a custom paper setting or in order to ease eyestrain.

Composition mode uses typewriter scrolling by default. This means that the line of text you type remains vertically centered on the paper. Once your text is long enough to reach the middle of the screen, the preceding text continues to scroll up the screen, but your cursor remains centered. You can disable typewriter scrolling by pressing Control-Cmd-T (Windows Key+Ctrl+T in Windows) while in Composition mode.

On the Mac, you can also access the menu bar while in Composition mode. Move your mouse pointer to the top of the screen, and the menu bar appears after a moment. You can access formatting tools and even turn on the Ruler without leaving Composition mode. Once you move the mouse pointer away from the top of the screen, the menu bar disappears.

Although Windows users can’t access the menu bar in Composition mode, many keyboard shortcuts still work for features that could logically be used within this mode, such as formatting, the Go To menu, and toggling the Ruler at the top of the screen.

The Control Strip, shown in Figure 5.2, provides the following options:

Figure 5.2 The Control Strip only becomes visible when you hover at the bottom of the screen.

• Text Scale: Adjusts the size of the text on the screen. As with the Text Scale setting in the standard Editor, this does not change the font size itself. Only its appearance is affected.

• Paper Position: Positions the paper on the left, right, or center of the screen. If you plan to access QuickReference panels or the Inspector panel, you may want to move the paper to the right or left so you can leave the panels open without obscuring the paper.

• Paper Width: Adjusts the width of the paper. The paper can be expanded as wide as the entire screen or minimized to a very narrow column.

• Paper Height: Adjusts the height of the paper. Hold down the Option key (Alt key in Windows) to change the Paper Width slider into the Paper Height slider. By default, the paper is set to the full height of the screen, but you can make it much smaller, allowing the background to show around all four sides.

• Keywords: Opens the Keywords panel (see Figure 5.3) to enable you to add keywords to the document. You can also add and delete keywords for the project.

Figure 5.3 The Keywords panel can be repositioned on the screen.

• Inspector: Displays the Inspector panel, shown in Figure 5.4. Click the drop-down menu to change the view from the Synopsis to Document Notes or one of the other Inspector screens. To view (or change) the label and status of the document, go to the bottom of the panel.

Figure 5.4 The Inspector panel, shown on the Mac, can be repositioned on the screen.

• Go To: Opens a pop-up menu to select a new document without leaving Composition mode.

• Word and Character Count: Displays the word and character count for the document. If you make a selection within the document on the Mac, the selection count turns blue and provides the word and character count for the highlighted text. In Windows, right-click to open the context menu; the selection count is visible at the bottom of the menu.

• Background Fade: When you use a background color, this slider controls how the background fades into the desktop behind it. At the lowest setting, the background becomes transparent so you can see your desktop and any open application windows. At the highest setting, the background color is completely opaque.

• Paper Fade: If you are using a background texture (image) instead of a solid color, the Background Fade slider is replaced with a Paper Fade slider to control the visibility of the background through the paper.

• Exit Composition (Full Screen) Mode: Returns to the standard Editor. You can also press the Esc (Escape) key or Option-Cmd-F (F11 in Windows).

In Figure 5.5, notice just how much you can customize the Composition mode using a combination of the Compose tab in the Preferences window and the Control Strip in Composition mode. I’ve added a tiled image to the background and changed the paper color. In the Control Strip, I narrowed the paper height and width and increased the text scale. I can write for hours in this environment; and if ever I don’t like it, I can change it.

Figure 5.5 An example of Composition mode fully tricked out.

If you want the standard Scrivener window to remain open while you’re in Composition mode, deselect Hide Main Window in Composition Mode. You can then use the Binder to open items in Composition mode by pressing the Option key while selecting items. To form a Scrivenings group in Composition mode, press Option-Cmd while selecting noncontiguous items or Option-Shift while selecting contiguous items in the Binder.

To enter Full Screen mode, choose one of the following:

• Click the double-sided arrow button in the upper-right corner of the Scrivener window.

• Choose View, Enter Full Screen from the menu.

• Toggle between Full Screen mode and the standard application window by pressing Control-Cmd-F.