How do I "ignore" front and back matter?

[CheriLasota]

In Narrative View, what is the correct way to “ignore” an item (such as front or back matter, research notes, etc.)? Because if I just right-click and choose Remove from Narrative, the item disappears in both Aeon and Scrivener. And I actually do want my front/back matter to stay put within the main book folder.

I should note that I don’t use folders for chapters and I don’t use scenes at all. I have every chapter as a separate document within my Scrivener project.

Addendum question: when an item is removed from the narrative, it appears to be tossed in the trash. That seems… problematic. Why does that occur and can I prevent it?

[SCN (Steve)]

Here are a couple of ideas:

In AT, you could add a tag (something like “chapter”) to each chapter item, but not front matter or back matter items. Then display or filter only items matching “chapter” tags. (You can do something similar with item types, too.)

Alternatively, in Scrivener you could add separate folders for front matter and back matter outside of the main draft/manuscript folder. Then, move your front matter and back matter documents into these new folders, respectively. Since these new folders do not sync with AT (unless you map them to sync in the AT sync setup), your narrative tabs on AT will not sync with them.

I’m not in front of my PC at the moment, so I’m going from memory. Hope this helps.

[SCN (Steve)]

@CheriLasota

Addendum question: when an item is removed from the narrative, it appears to be tossed in the trash. That seems… problematic. Why does that occur and can I prevent it?

Deleting a synced item in AT deletes the corresponding document in Scrivener. Scrivener moves deleted documents to the trash. How is this problematic?

[Goaliedad]

How did you sync to Scrivener? Normally the Front and Back Matter are by default outside the Manuscript Folder which is what you normally sync to Aeon Timeline. You can add Entity Folders but not sure why you would. Look at Screen shots below. If did add Front and Back Matter, you can ignore, or start a new timeline and sync with Scrivener again but only with the Manuscript Folder.

but see below option to add Entity folders (If you did, then start again and exclude or ignore and give a special color that reminds you to ignore. You can as Steve suggests add a tag like manuscript and filter by that view to ignore the Front and Back Matter.

[CheriLasota]

I’m not entirely sure what an entity folder is or how to make one. I’ll do a search and will hopefully find an AT article on that topic so I can better understand what you mean.

The reason I’m hesitating to dump front/back matter into a different folder is because this isn’t just one book. I have 10 books in this one manuscript folder in one Scriv Project. So dumping all front/back matter for all 10 books in a separate folder could get pretty confusing/messy over time.

[SCN (Steve)]

If your front matter and back matter are, in Scrivener, simply documents within the Draft/Manuscript folder, then I think using AT’s tags or item types (as I mentioned above) to display only the chapters and not the FM/BM items will do what you want. But as @Goaliedad said, it can depend on how you have set up Scrivener.

[CheriLasota]

Thanks for the good advice. I decided to pull front/back matter out of the synced manuscript folder. It’ll make for a mess later when I’m trying to format the books for publication but I’d rather it be easier to manage now in Aeon while I’m still writing drafts.

[AeonRob (Rob Steep)]

Hi Cheri,

Noting that you mentioned you’ve gone ahead and removed front/back matter out of the synced manuscript folder, but this is how you can “Ignore” an item you’ve removed from the narrative to exclude it from syncing and keep it out of the trash in Scrivener:

1. Select the item in the Narrative in Aeon Timeline.

2. Delete or remove it from the narrative in the inspector.

   • Select “Remove from narrative” if you want it to still exist in the Timeline and other views.
   • Select “Delete” if you want it gone from Aeon Timeline altogether.

3. Open the sync panel on the left, and select the removed event.

4. In the sync inspector on the right, it will say “Timeline: Delete (Change)”. Click Change and select “Ignore”.

5. The item will change to a ghost icon in the sync binder. It will continue to exist as a document in Scrivener, but won’t be in your Aeon Timeline narrative.

If you decide to add your front/back matter back into the synced manuscript folder you can follow the same steps in the sync panel and change ‘Create New’ to ‘Ignore’ to exclude those Scrivener documents from syncing.

[Goaliedad]

That is interesting and good to know. I put my front and back matter folders inside my research folder. For Compiling in Scrivener, all you need to do is when you click Front matter to add to compile is to navigate to the folder you are using for this. It will compile without an issue whether it is in the manuscript folder or inside research.
Here is an example from the book I wrote and am currently sending query letters to agents. (Image has been modified for clarity.)

[Goaliedad]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Is this in your Narrative guide? If not, it might be interesting to add. That is interesting and good to know.
But to Cherilasota’s point, the Front and Back Matter folders do NOT need to be in the Manuscript to be included in your compile output. I put my front and back matter folders inside my research folder. For Compiling in Scrivener, all you need to do is when you click Front matter to add to compile is to navigate to the folder you are using for this. It will compile without an issue whether it is in the manuscript folder or inside research.

[SCN (Steve)]

In reading @AeonRob’s advice, I see now the most direct approach is to remove the item from the narrative in the item’s inspector and clean things up in the Sync settings.

I do wonder if my own suggestion of changing the display of items in the tab through the Content or Filter functions would have worked just as well. But, now that I think about it, a downside would be the need to repeat such settings in any tab where we don’t want to see the front matter/back matter items displayed. So the best option is to remove such items from the narrative and clean up the syncing, I see.

In my own workflow, I’ve never dealt with this because if there is a narrative item I no longer want, I’ve just deleted it. Ignorance is bliss!

[AeonRob (Rob Steep)]

The process shared above isn’t covered very well in our existing documentation, but we’re working on a couple of new guides that will cover everything to do with syncing, including what can be synced, how to set up and manage your sync settings, and how to keep everything in sync as you work between apps.

We’re hoping to publish the Scrivener one soon and will follow up with Ulysses after that.

[CheriLasota]

Thanks all. Ignoring via sync sounds like the way to go for this kind of thing. And, yes, it’d be great to have more info about this in the documentation.

In my case, I don’t use Scrivener’s compile. I format my print books in InDesign first, and then export an epub out of that and into Jutoh (ebook creation app). So, for me, it’s better that I keep all of my front/back matter within the manuscript folder in Scriv.

[Goaliedad]

Why not keep them out of the manuscript folder during the creation phase. Move them into the manuscript if you want to compile/ export. Then move back out before sync to Aeon Timeline again.