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The scene board: three views, the card, and what opens inside it
Last updated September 9, 2026 · 7 min read
In one line: the scene board is where you read the shape of an episode in an old project. This page covers the three views, every field on a card, and what appears when you open one.
Opening it
Second icon in the left activity bar. You land in Board view, Detailed density, showing the episode you were last in.
Three views
| View | What it looks like | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Board (default) | Cards laid out under act columns | Pacing: how scenes fall across the acts |
| List | One row per scene | Detail: scanning a lot of scene data at once |
| Timeline | Horizontal length bars | Duration: which scenes run long and which run short |
Timeline has two sub-tabs of its own. Pacing is the default and the one that works; Storyline Arc is a placeholder and is not open.
Episode / Season
This toggle only exists in Board view. List and Timeline always show the current episode.
Switch to Season and each episode becomes a column, scrolling sideways, with the acts grouped and collapsible inside each column. Scenes are loaded episode by episode as they are needed, so the first switch can take a moment.
Compact / Detailed
Also Board view only. Detailed is the default.
A compact card keeps the storyline colour bar, the scene number, interior/exterior, location, time and a single line of summary. Hover it and a tooltip gives you the summary, character count, minutes and word count.
Compact cards are read-only. Summary, annotation, structural beat and location will not respond to a click. Switch back to Detailed to edit them.
When "Choose a Structure" appears
It is not a dialog. It fills the scene area. It shows when this episode has no structure applied yet and has no content yet — no scenes, or a single empty one. Once an episode has a structure, it stops asking.
Four templates ship with it: Three-Act, Taiwanese TV (3 acts / 6 beats), Kishotenketsu, and Freytag's Pyramid. You can also build your own, or save the current structure as a template. A Skip link at the bottom dismisses it for this sitting.
Custom templates are stored in this browser, not on your account. Move to another machine or clear your site data and they are gone.
To change the structure of an episode that already has scenes in it, use the structure menu in the top bar. Slima asks first whether to keep the existing scenes or discard them.
What a scene card carries
A Detailed card, top to bottom:
- The storyline colour bar down the left edge, one stripe per storyline, up to five, with names on hover
- The scene number, a plain digit
- Interior / exterior, which toggles on a click
- Location, showing "+ Location" while empty
- Time of day, cycling on a click
- An annotation such as "flashback" or "continuous", in grey brackets, editable in place
- The summary, which turns into a text field when clicked
- A preview of the script itself, the first few dozen characters of action and dialogue already written in that scene
- Character chips
- The structural beat, such as "Opening Image" or "Midpoint", showing "+ Structure" while empty
~Nmin, the estimated running time- A conflict bar along the bottom: green at 1–2, amber at 3, red at 4–5
Character chips come in two kinds and look different:
| Style | Where it came from | Removable |
|---|---|---|
| Solid | You added it by hand | Yes, the chip carries an × |
| Dashed outline | Detected automatically from dialogue in the scene | No. Change the script and it changes |
Names that appear in the script but have no entry in the character bible still show up, greyed.
Click a card and it expands in place
Expanding adds four blocks:
- Conflict Level, five buttons. 1 is groundwork, 5 is the tightest scene in the script. Timeline view reads this.
- Storylines, showing what is already tagged, with + Add to attach another. Only episode storylines can be attached to a scene — season storylines cannot.
- Stats: word count, dialogue lines, estimated duration. All read-only.
- Delete and Go to Scene. Go to Scene jumps to that scene in the script editor.
Two conditions have to hold for a card to expand: Detailed density, and Episode scope. In Compact, clicking does nothing. In Season scope, clicking switches to that episode and opens the scene detail panel on the right instead.
Double-clicking a card in Episode scope also opens that right-hand panel, with the cursor already in the summary.
The right-click menu
Right-click a card for five items: Edit, Tag storyline, Split, Merge, Delete.
Split and Merge are greyed out and marked "Coming soon". They were never finished in the old studio and they will not be now. For splitting and merging scenes, see how it works today.
Right-click only works in Episode scope. There is no menu in Season view.
The board holds data; the editor holds words
The scene board owns the scene number, interior/exterior, location, time, characters, storylines, conflict level, structural beat and summary. Dialogue, action and transitions are written in the script editor.
There is no AI on the board and none in the right-hand rail. The old studio's coach is switched off entirely, so no "analyse my pacing" button is going to appear here.
Where scene-level notes live
Not in the card expansion. They are in the Notes tab of the Plan view, or added by right-clicking a scene element inside the script editor.
Related
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