Views
The different ways to look at the same project, and what each one is for.
A view is a way of looking at your project. Views open as tabs, so you can put a timeline next to the scene you are writing. They all read the same notes: change something in one and the others follow.
Open a view from the ribbon on the left, or from the command palette (⌘P, then type "open").
Views that are always there
| View | What it shows | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Editor | One note. | Writing. |
Graph (⌘G) | Notes as dots, links as lines, for the whole project or around one note. | Seeing what connects to what, and what connects to nothing. |
Codex (⌘⇧C) | Characters, places and other world pages, grouped by type, like a wiki. | Looking things up. |
| Outline | A table of notes with their properties as columns. Edit in place, sort and filter. | Checking status, point of view and word counts across a book. |
| Corkboard | A folder's scenes as index cards with title and synopsis. | Reordering. Drag a card and the binder order changes with it. |
| Plot grid | Scenes down the side, plot threads across the top. | Seeing which thread goes quiet for too long. |
Relationships (⌘⇧R) | Characters, with labelled lines between them: ally, rival, parent. | Keeping who-is-what-to-whom straight. |
| Manuscript | A folder's scenes stitched into one long, editable page. | Reading and revising across scene breaks. |
| Read | A paginated, print-style preview of a folder. | Proofreading, and printing to PDF through your browser. |
Corkboard, Manuscript, Read and Plot grid work on a folder or a chapter. Right-click it in the binder to open one there.
Views that are notes
A timeline and a canvas are notes in the binder. Create one like any other note and click it to open it. A project can have several of each.
Timeline
A horizontal timeline in story time.
- Scenes appear by their story date and duration properties. Drag or stretch a scene on the timeline and the properties change; edit the property and the scene moves.
- Events that are not scenes (a war, a birth) can be added straight to the timeline.
- Lanes can follow plot threads, point of view or location.
- Zoom from minutes to thousands of years (
⌘and scroll). - Custom calendars: your own months, day lengths and eras, for a world that doesn't use ours.
- Reading order or story order: lay scenes out in the order the reader meets them, or in the order they happen, with flashbacks marked.
Dates are written YYYY-MM-DD, with an optional HH:mm, in the months of the timeline's calendar.
Canvas (storyboard)
An endless board for arranging things by hand.
- Cards for notes (linked to the real note), plain text cards, image and shot panels with shot type, camera move and duration, groups, and labelled arrows.
- Several people can work on the same canvas at once.
- A note placed on a canvas counts as a link, so the canvas shows up in that note's backlinks and in the graph.
Views that come with a module
A project's modules switch groups of tools on and off, so a novelist doesn't see game tools. The project type picks the starting set. Change it under "Project settings" in the command palette.
| Module | Views it adds |
|---|---|
| World bible | Continuity |
| Releases & reveals | Release roadmap, Secrets & setups |
| Research & sources | Sources |
| Review & editorial | Reviews |
| Production | Production |
| Interactive narrative | Dialogue, Quests, Strings |
| Localization | Translate |
| Publishing | Publish |
The world bible and releases are covered in Canon and the spoiler horizon.
Less tested
Script formats, Production, Interactive narrative, Localization, Research and Publishing are available to everyone, but have had less testing than the rest. Screenplay page counts are approximate. If you rely on one of these, please report what you find.
Where a view keeps its settings
Some things are stored in your browser and not with the project: the positions on the relationship map, which continuity warnings you dismissed, and the pane layout you didn't save as a named layout. They won't follow you to another computer, and your co-writers don't see them.