# Structured nodes: description, character, dialogue

> Open the type menu, pick with number keys, and see what Enter continues.

Source: https://loomworld.ai/docs/editor-nodes

## Open the type menu

Two ways, whichever suits the hand you are free with: press `Tab` on any script line, or type `/` at the start of an empty line. The menu floats out of the current line as a row of type chips.

While it is open the line is read-only on purpose—that is what keeps the digits you press in the menu instead of dropping them into the text. Back out with `Esc` or just keep typing.

## Choose with number keys or the mouse

The order is fixed, so `1`–`9` map straight onto it: 1 Description, 2 Character, 3 Dialogue, 4 Comment, 5 Dialogue action, 6 Narration, 7 Transition, 8 Scene setting, 9 Scene. Move the highlight with `↑``↓` (or Tab) and confirm with `Enter`. Clicking works too; number keys just keep you inside the writing rhythm.

The easiest to misuse is Character: it only declares who speaks the lines that follow. Someone entering, looking out of the window, saying nothing—that is a description line. Use Character as an appearance marker and the appearance counts go wrong.

## What Enter and the arrows continue

- Enter on a character line creates his dialogue; Enter on a dialogue line stays dialogue, so a run of lines needs no re-picking.
- Enter on any other type returns to a description line.
- Action is an insertion inside dialogue: the legal shape is character → (any number of actions) → one or more dialogues. An action cannot create a speaker.
- A note ends the current speaker—it is words to yourself, not part of the dialogue.
- On plain lines, ↑ ↓ at the first or last row steps into the previous or next node; scene and scene setting nodes are multi-field, so Enter walks the fields first and only starts a new line after the last one.
- Enter on an empty line inside a scene leaves the scene; Backspace on an empty line deletes it and hands focus back.

## What each node lets you fill in

Once a line has a type, what you can fill differs by type—knowing it beats trial and error:

- Content blocks (Description, Character, Dialogue, Comment, Dialogue action, Narration, Transition): the text itself plus one line of intent. A character line also links to an actual card, and bracketed prop names in a line are recorded on that line.
- Scene: location (picked from the location library, or a new name that files a card), time (free text), a short title, a scene summary, and numbered beats—the beats are what later prose expansion works from. Summaries carry their origin: one produced by maintenance can be refreshed, one you typed is never overwritten.
- Scene setting: location and time, a description, and the in-story timeline index, label and note that hang this moment on the timeline. Its location may only be the scene’s own location or a descendant of it.
- Chapter: title, chapter intent, and a colour. Chapter numbers come from the current order, not from the title—so a fresh chapter showing “Chapter 3” with an empty title is correct behaviour.

Scene and scene setting are multi-field nodes: Enter walks through the fields first and only starts a new line after the last one, so the mouse can stay out of it.

## Shaping never rewrites your words

Changing type only swaps the semantic mark on that line; nothing you typed moves. So try freely. What does change is structure: making a line a scene pulls the lines after it into that scene, and deleting it removes the scene and renumbers the rest.

Two ways back: undo is the app-wide project stack (`Cmd`/`Ctrl` + `Z`, up to 30 whole-project steps, with typing inside one second collapsed into a single step), and every edit is written locally first, then queued for sync, so a dropped connection never costs you finished words.

## Limits and troubleshooting

- The menu belongs to script lines only. Tab inside a card field (character name, place description) is native input behaviour and will not open it.
- The legacy comment, parenthetical and caption types are gone with no read-compatibility: that content is written today as Comment, Dialogue action, or Narration.
- Selecting across lines then copying yields plain text — no node types or styling. Copying inside one node keeps your exact range.
- Do not see a type? The row scrolls: ← → or the number keys still reach it.

Full semantics and the page layout are in [Script editor overview](https://loomworld.ai/docs/editor-overview).