Your codex as a map

Your codex has two views: the list and the map. They are the same entries. An entry you add, rename, describe or delete in one is changed in the other, and every AI call reads it the same way. The map is the quickest way to see who knows whom, what happens where, and which corners of your world nothing points to yet.

Switch with List | Map at the top of the Codex tab, or of the map.

Building your world on the map

You can add to the codex without leaving the map, in three ways:

• ＋ New entry at the top: choose what it is (a character, place, thing or note), give it a name, and press Enter.
• Double-click empty space to add an entry right there.
• Drag an entry's + handle onto empty space to add a new entry that is already connected to it. It's the quickest way to grow a cluster: Mara, then her mother, then the house they lived in. Say how they are connected (Parent of, Located within…) on the same card; it's optional.

The new entry's panel opens, ready for you to write what is true about it.

Editing. Click any entry to open its panel. Its name is edited in place. Its description reads like a page; click the text, or Edit, to write. Type @ to link another entry (see below), and its line appears as you write.

Deleting is at the bottom of the panel. Removing a character takes them out of this book only; they stay in your character library for other books. Deleting series canon removes it from every volume, and the panel says so before it happens.

Three ways to see your world

The map comes in three looks. It picks one from your book's genre, and you can switch at any time from the buttons at the top:

• Atlas is an old chart in ink on aged paper, with your entries as medallions and a compass in the corner. It is the look for most books, and in dark mode it is read by candlelight.
• Constellation is your world as a night sky, each entry a star. Fantasy and science-fiction books start here.
• Story wall is an investigator's wall: every entry a pinned card, every relationship a length of red string. Mysteries, thrillers and crime start here.

Auto goes back to the look that suits the genre. Your choice is saved with the book, so it is the same on every device.

Entries with more connections are drawn larger, so the people and places your story leans on stand out. Point at an entry and everything not connected to it fades back. Click one and the map glides to it.

How entries get connected

There are two kinds of line, and you can tell them apart on the map.

Links you write. While writing any codex entry, in the list or on the map, type @ and start a name. A list of matching entries opens; pick one with the arrow keys and Enter, or click it. The entry's name goes into your text as plain words:

Mara was born in Harrow Point.

That entry is now joined to Harrow Point. There is no markup to read, for you or for the AI. The line stays for as long as your text names the entry: delete the name and the line goes; write it back and the line returns. A link written in both entries is still one line. These are grey.

Only names you picked with @ are linked, so a character called Will does not get a line every time someone will do something. To also see every plain mention, turn on Plain-text mentions in Filters.

Prefer brackets? [[Harrow Point]] still works, and so does [[Mara Verel|her daughter]] to show different words. The AI reads them with the brackets taken out. A bracketed name that is not in the codex yet is listed under Not in the Codex yet.

Relationships you draw. Click an entry, then drag the + handle beside it onto another entry. Pick a relationship (Parent of, Allied with, Located within, Owns…) or write your own, and choose which way it points. Link to… in the entry's panel does the same without dragging. These lines are in your accent colour, with an arrow and the relationship's name.

Click a line to see what it is. A relationship you drew can be changed or removed from there; removing one never touches either entry.

Moving around

• Pan: drag empty space (or hold Space and drag, or use the arrow keys).
• Zoom: scroll the wheel or pinch; +, − and Fit sit in the corner. Shift + scroll pans sideways.
• Arrange: drag an entry and it stays where you put it — a small pin marks it. Double-click it, or press Unpin in its panel, to let it float again. Everything else spreads itself out around what you pinned.
• Re-run layout lets every entry go and lays the map out afresh.

Filtering

Filters opens a panel over the map that hides what you do not need:

• each kind — Characters, Places, Things & terms, Notes & lore, Research — with how many you have of each;
• Series canon, in a volume of a series: the shared entries, drawn with a dashed outer ring;
• Plain-text mentions: also draws a dashed line wherever one entry's text names another without brackets;
• Unlinked entries: entries nothing connects to yet;
• Find an entry fades everything that does not match.

Your filters are remembered in this browser, for each book.

Pictures

Click an entry, then Add picture… to choose one from your art library, upload one, or generate one. Or drag an image file straight onto an entry. The picture fills its circle, and shows beside its name in the Codex tab too.

A character's picture is their reference portrait, the same one the cast uses when their illustrations are drawn, so changing it on the map changes it there too. Pictures used on the map count as "in use" in your art library, so they cannot be deleted from under it.

The entry's panel

Clicking an entry opens its panel:

• its picture;
• its name and description, with each linked name as a button to that entry;
• its relationships.

Show in list opens the same entry in the codex's list view, unfolded and in view.

Find an entry

On a large map, type in the filter panel's search box to list matching entries, then choose one to jump to it. Zoom out for an overview of the whole map, and in to see each entry's kind and how many links it has.

A world's entries on the map

If the book is set in a shared world, the world's entries and the connections drawn between them appear on the map too, marked as shared. Open one to read it, or choose Open world library to change it in the world.

Ask about your world

When the book is set in a shared world, the assistant at the bottom of the map is the world assistant. Ask it about your world or the book, or ask it to suggest entries and connections. Each suggestion is a card you accept or reject; nothing changes until you accept.

On a phone

On a phone the map opens close enough to read the names; Fit shows every entry at once. ＋ adds an entry, and ⋯ holds the rest: the look, Share as a world, Filters & views and Re-run layout. The bar along the bottom of the screen goes back to the page (Write), to the codex as a list (Codex) or to the assistant (Ask) in one tap.