Idea Tools
Five thinking prompts, in the menu bar's own Idea Tools menu, each aimed at whichever Story Bible record is currently open in the inspector — a different way in when you're stuck on what a character, place or event actually is.
| Tool | Prompts you to work out |
|---|---|
| Context Map | What this record is, defined against the context around it. |
| Description Web | The qualities that describe it, filled in as a set of adjectives. |
| Compare & Contrast | What it shares with another record, and what tells the two apart. |
| Cause & Effect | What caused this event, and what followed from it. Events only. |
| Scene Builder | What the scene is fighting over, then the six beats it runs on. Scenes only. |
The same five tools are also on a record's own action menu, also labelled Idea Tools — reach for the menu bar version when you're already looking at the record in the inspector and don't want to leave it to find the button.
Why some are greyed out
Every item stays visible even when it doesn't apply, rather than disappearing — a menu whose contents change per record type is harder to learn than one that's sometimes disabled. Two rules decide what's enabled:
- Nothing inspected. All five need a record open in the inspector first; with nothing selected, all five are disabled.
- Wrong type. Cause & Effect only applies to Events, and Scene Builder only to Scenes. Context Map, Description Web and Compare & Contrast work on any record type.
Choosing an enabled item opens that tool as a sheet over the record it was opened from.