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Storylines window

The biggest area of StoryLines is taken up by the storylines window. Horizontal lines contain cards in columns. Each column, representing a time point, can contain more than one card but there can only be one card per storyline per column. The Master Storyline shows all the cards in the storylines laid out in a row.

You can use toolbar or menu commands to create or delete cards. Left-click on a card to edit it, and right-click on a card to popup a context menu with commands that apply to this card.

Cards can be dragged individually using the left mouse button, or you can select several by Ctrl-left clicking or by dragging a selection box around a group of cards, or by choosing Select All on the context menu (also by Ctrl-A). You can deselect cards using the context menu or by clicking anywhere on the window background.

Undo/Redo can be applied to most commands. This can be handy when you've dragged a card somewhere you didn't want to, for example, and want to quickly revert to the previous position.

A card can have the navigation focus as well as be selected. There is only ever one card with the focus, and it is highlighted by a flashing colour bar. When you create a new card with Ctrl-N or the New Card command, it is created after the focus card in an available column or in a newly created column.

You can navigate around the storylines window with the keyboard arrow keys, using Alt-Left, Alt-Right, Alt-Up, and Alt-Down. The current focus will be set to the first card in the specified direction. Alt-Home and Alt-End will take you to the start and the end of the storylines window respectively.

You can insert a column in front of the focus card with Alt-Insert, and delete selected cards or the focus card using Alt-Delete.

Columns can have optional labels: left-click on a column number to edit a label, and press Return to finish editing the label. Column labels will often contain a date or time; but you might wish to use a more qualitative term.

You can divide your project into numbered sections. Insert a new section marker by left-clicking near the top of a column and entering some text (or leaving the section name blank). A context menu that pops up when right-click over the section label allows you to delete or move the section marker. Note that you can only delete the first section marker if there are no other sections present.