Story Builder documentation

Search

Search finds any character, chapter, place or event in your novel projects by its name or tag, so you can jump straight to a record when the project has grown past what you can remember.

How do I search my whole project? #

Press Ctrl + K (Cmd + K on a Mac) anywhere in the builder, / when you are not typing in a field, or click Search everything at the top of the page, then type part of a name or a tag. In a text editor, such as a chapter or a description, Ctrl + K adds a link instead. Results appear as you type, grouped by type.

  • The arrow keys move through the results, and Enter opens the one you are on.
  • The chips above the results narrow them to one type, and each chip shows how many matches it has.
  • All at the top of a group shows every match of that type.
  • With nothing typed, the list shows what you opened recently.

What does search look through? #

Search matches the names of records and their tags. It does not look inside chapter text or descriptions: to find a word in a chapter, open the chapter and use find and replace (Ctrl + F).

It covers characters, books, chapters, locations, places, plotlines, events, entries, creatures, organizations, languages, maps, brainstorm boards, ideas, world rules and the records of your collections in every project you belong to. It also finds published stories and people. Each result names the project it comes from, and results from the project you have open are highlighted. A collection record is listed under its collection's name with the collection's icon, so a religion reads as a Religion, whether or not the collection shows in the sidebar. Deleted records never appear.

Search leaves out images, the words of a language's dictionary, the collections themselves (open one from the sidebar or Settings → Collections), the timeline's calendar and eras, and your private quick notes.

Quick view #

On a wide screen, press → or the eye button (Quick view) on a result to see the record beside the list without leaving the page you are on. ← closes it again.

Why can't I find a record I know exists? #

Search shows only what your role lets you read, project by project. If your role in a project cannot read characters, that project's characters never appear in your results, not even as a count. A module the project has switched off is skipped the same way, until you switch it back on. See permissions for what each role can read.

If the record should be visible to you, check three things:

  • The spelling. Try a shorter part of the name, or search by tag.
  • The name, not the text. A word that only appears in a description or a chapter is not found.
  • The archive. A deleted record leaves search until it is restored from the archive.

How do I find something I just created? #

Pickers and mentions remember what you were working on a moment ago. Before you type anything:

  • A picker — the one that adds a related entry, a member, a location or any other record — lists Just created and Recently opened first: up to five records of the kinds it accepts, each shown once. Start typing and the usual results take over.
  • In a description or a chapter, type @ or [[ and the same two groups appear before you type a name. Where a list mixes kinds, each record's kind is shown beside its name.

A record made on the spot with Quick add in a mention says so in a message with Open and Pin, so a name you invented mid-sentence is one click from its own page.

The workbench #

Workbench at the top of a project (on a phone, in your account menu; or Shift + W) opens a panel beside the page with what you are working on right now:

  • Pinned — records you keep at hand. Pin one with the pin beside its title, from the panel, or from the message after a quick add. Pins are yours, kept per project and on every device.
  • Unfinished — records you created recently that still have no description, so a name added in passing is not forgotten. A plotline marked as completed is never listed here.
  • Just created and Recently opened — the rest of what you made and visited lately.

While a character, place, event or any other record with related entries is open, each row offers Relate to this page, which links that record to the one you are on. What you created and opened is remembered in this browser; pins follow your account.

Searching and filtering a list #

Every list page — characters, locations, entries and the rest — has its own search box that narrows the list by name. More filters narrows it further: by tag on most lists and by map and type on locations. Every list also filters by its kind's custom fields that hold text, a number, a choice from a list or a yes/no: every character of the third house, every creature that lives in caves, every chapter set at night. Related to keeps only the records linked to one you pick. Clear filters brings the whole list back. To keep a filtered, sorted or grouped list, save it as a view; your views are listed here under Views too.

Searching the library #

Readers search published stories by title in the library, and narrow the results by Genre, Language and Age rating. Authors whose names match are listed above the stories. Library search covers published work only; nothing unpublished can be found from it.

Tips #

  • Tag what belongs together. A tag such as flashback or house-varen makes a group of records findable in one search.
  • Learn the / key. It opens search without reaching for Ctrl or Cmd.
  • Peek before you jump. Quick view lets you check a detail without losing your place in a chapter.
  • Pin what you are weaving together. A handful of pinned records turns linking a busy chapter into a few clicks from the workbench.
  • Use a choice list for fields you filter on. A custom field with fixed options gives the characters list a clean filter.