How to get around the workspace

At a glance

When you open a comic, you see the workspace. It has three parts:

• The far-left rail: The main sections of this comic. Click one, and the area on the right changes to it.
• The middle column: This only appears in “Production”. It holds every episode and every page in the current episode.
• The main panel: The section you are viewing and editing. The round button in the lower right is the assistant.

The far-left rail

The rail has six sections, split into two groups:

• The top group is planning: thinking, synopsis, pacing, and story elements. These control what the whole comic is about.
• The bottom group is production and gallery. Production is where you draw the comic episode by episode. The gallery holds every image generated for this comic.

Most of the time, the rail only shows icons. Hover over it for a moment, and it expands to the right to show each section name. Story elements also shows how many cards it has, and Production shows how many episodes it has. Move the mouse away, and it folds back. When it expands, it floats over the content. It does not push the right side away. Hover over an item, and you will also see a short note, such as “Every generated image · Nothing lost” for the gallery.

The current section appears as a raised white card, with a red icon.

At the bottom of the rail, you will also find a few more things:

• Project settings: Change the title, view this comic’s art style, and make a cover.
• Back to home: Return to your comic list.
• Your account: Open the account menu to see how many images you can still make, invite friends, change the language, or open the beginner tutorial.

Why are planning and production in the same rail? When you make a comic, you move back and forth between them. You may be halfway through drawing and notice that a character setting is wrong. So you go back to story elements, fix it, and return to drawing. Putting them in the same rail keeps that to one click each way.

Top bar: Section name, tabs, main action

At the top of the main panel, there are three things from left to right:

• On the left, you see the name of this section. In “Production”, it shows the episode number and the episode name.
• In the center, you see the tabs for this section. For example, story elements has worldbuilding, characters, locations, props, and relationships. Production has synopsis, pacing, and storyboard.
• On the right, you see the action used most often in this section, such as “Add” in storyboard.

The middle column only appears in production

Click “Production” on the rail, and a new column appears between the rail and the main panel:

• The header shows the comic title. On the right, there is a “+” to add an episode, plus an export button.
• The upper part shows every episode, one per row. At the end of each row, you see how many panels are finished (x/y; old drafts do not count as finished). Hover over it to see how many pages it has. The current episode appears as a white card.
• The lower part shows every page in the current episode. Click a page, and the main panel jumps to the storyboard and scrolls to that page.

Production remembers the episode and section where you left off last time. The next time you click “Production”, you go right back there.

If there are no episodes yet, “Production” is gray and cannot be clicked. First add an episode in “Pacing”, or ask the assistant to split the story into episodes for you.

The assistant in the lower right

The round button in the lower right is the AI assistant. It is available in every section. Open it and tell it what you want in one sentence. It will update the comic. When it finishes, it leaves a receipt that says what changed. The receipt has links such as “Go to synopsis” and “Go to storyboard”. Click one to jump there.

To learn what the assistant can and cannot do, see “What the assistant can and cannot do”.

What if I delete something by mistake?

When you delete an episode, a card, or a page, a message appears at the bottom. Click “Undo” within 5 seconds to bring it back. It is only truly deleted after those 5 seconds. If you switch to another section, close the page, or delete something else during those 5 seconds, the previous item is deleted right away.

Items on the thinking canvas do not use this message. Use ⌘Z to undo them. Removing a beat pin or deleting a relationship takes effect right away, with no undo.

On a phone

On a narrow phone screen, the workspace uses a different layout:

• The left rail becomes a row at the very bottom, with the six sections lined up. The current one is shown in red text;
• “Back to home” is in the upper left, and “Project settings” and your avatar are in the upper right;
• The “Production” column moves above the bottom row. It becomes a single horizontally scrollable row of episodes;
• The tabs from the center of the top bar move to a second row, which can also scroll horizontally;
• The export button is on the right side of the top bar;
• Open the assistant, and its panel slides up from the bottom and takes up most of the screen.