Is there a way to filter Narrative Folders (e.g. Parts)

Q & A
#1

Hi,

In Narrative View, I’ve assigned various narratives (events, dialogues etc.) into Narrative Folders (which function like Parts, e.g. Beginning, Trouble, Climax).

When I try to filter by Narrative Folders (e.g. “Beginning”), the Narrative view only shows an empty Narrative Folder “Beginning” with none of the included narratives (events, dialogues etc.).

Is this because technically events, dialogues etc. are not children of Narrative Folders?

Regardless, is there an elegant way to simply filter and show the narratives of a particular Narrative Folder?

#2

Hi @lynx ,

I think the problem you are facing is because the Narrative folders, as you suggest, are not functioning as parents of the narrative items contained within.

However, instead of trying to filter on the Narrative Folders, the easiest way of achieving what you want to see is to use either tags or relationships and then filter on these.

So, for instance, if you have a Part which contains a handful of Chapters and Scenes, and you know that these are all going to be in the Narrative Folder titled ‘Beginnings’, then you can assign a Tag in the Inspector called ‘Beginnings’ to each Part, Chapter and Scene. Then if you filter on that tag, all of the items you wish to see would appear in Narrative View.

You could always set up a new Item Type and Relationship ands use these as an alternative to tags. But tags would work just as well. If you do need help setting up new item types and corresponding relationships then I’m happy to assist. Or you can check out the help articles at help.timeline.app where Item Types and Relationships and Properties are all covered in some detail under the Advanced Settings section.

Hope this helps.

#3

Thanks, I was hoping for something better than having to duplicate the same data (i.e. part) twice. Maybe it’ll make a good feature request.

#4

Wow! I just discovered this problem, which seems kind of huge to me! When I was working in the beta, I distinctly remember creating a “filter” that allowed me to see ONLY the narrative folders that I wanted, and (of course!) all the containing events. Now this is not possible!?

This is a great big problem for those of us who sync to Scrivener: since we are no longer permitted to sync events outside of the “draft” folder, the workaround is to create dummy folders inside of the draft folder for events that don’t currently fit in the narrative: ie, backstory events and/or unplaced scenes. I can’t believe there’s no simple way to view the narrative without those folders showing. Argh!!! :confounded:

@ahansonauthor, am I correct that we were once able to filter only certain folders AND their contents, or is that just a wishful revision of history? Further, is the only way to work around this at the moment is to tag either all the events in my narrative, or all the events NOT in my narrative, and include/exclude the tag? That’s very cumbersome, and prone to all kinds of user errors-- suppose say I drag an event from unplaced scenes into Act One, but forget to remove or add the tag? Then I won’t see it! @matt I hope you are following this. :sob:

#5

Okay, apologies for the emotional response-- I have implemented the workaround suggested by @ahansonauthor, and it’s not as onerous as I expected. For my particular use case (finding a simple way to “hide” the unplaced scenes and backstory folders when looking at narrative view), it’s easiest to create a tag called “Hidden”; then, in outline view select both folders and all their contents and apply the tag; then, in narrative view create a filtered view that uses a tag filter-- “Match None” = “Hidden”. Then SAVE that focused view so that it can be loaded in a single click. I just have to be smart and remember to remove the tag if I move a scene out of one of those two folders. It is counter-intuitive, and involves many steps, as others have said. On the other hand, I have this wonderful software. Hard to complain.