I <a title="One small but wonderful Scrivener discovery" href="http://davidhewson.com/2011/02/one-small-but-wonderful-scrivener-discovery/">wrote on Monday </a>of the discovery that Scrivener is marvellous when it comes to viewing and editing non-continuous documents when you select them with the command key in the Binder. Here's this morning's related discovery: the same trick works with Scrivener 2's QuickRef feature, a little tool that opens up another chapter in a small window for reference.

You know when you're writing one chapter but need to refer back to another for details? You don't have to have that chapter open in a long scrolling document. QuickRef lets you open it up in a small, resizable scrollable window to find the parts you want.

Let's start like this... by selecting three scenes I want as reference holding down the command key, then picking the QuickRef icon.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7563" title="Screen shot 2011-03-01 at 11.03.38" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Screen-shot-2011-03-01-at-11.03.38.png" alt="" width="437" height="273" />

Next we see this... those three scenes as small windows to be positioned anywhere.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-7564" title="Screen shot 2011-03-01 at 11.03.53" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Screen-shot-2011-03-01-at-11.03.53.png" alt="" width="399" height="423" />

So I can use them to flick back to related detail very easily. And if I hit full screen I can still see them there, along with my notes...

<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Screen-shot-2011-03-01-at-11.04.17.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-7566" title="Screen shot 2011-03-01 at 11.04.17" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Screen-shot-2011-03-01-at-11.04.17-640x424.png" alt="" width="640" height="424" /></a>

This is very powerful stuff if you're the kind of writer who needs to keep different sections of a narrative in sync across extended sections of the book (which I am).