The editor

ChatMapper Cloud is a web application. There is nothing to install, nothing to license per machine, and the project you open on a laptop is the same one you open on a desktop an hour later. This page is a tour of the editor, one region at a time.

The toolbar (top)

Left to right:

Control	What it does
Workspace / project name	Click the workspace to open the workspace panel — projects, members, settings. Click the project name to switch project.
Share	Invite reviewers, viewers and editors to this project, and copy a player link.
Saved · time	Autosave status. Shows Saving… while a save is in flight.
Add node, Add group	New node under the selection (also Tab); a group node whose children become the player’s choices.
Undo, Redo	Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y.
History	The revision history panel.
✦ AI	The AI transcript panel, when AI is enabled for your workspace. The composer itself floats at the bottom of the canvas.
Search	Find (Ctrl+F) and find-and-replace (Ctrl+H) across the whole project.
Language	Which language the canvas, inspector and simulator display, once the project has more than one.
Validate (shield)	Opens the validation panel. The icon carries a count when there are issues.
▶ Play and ▾	Full-screen play. The menu offers Play from this conversation, Simulate (the author debugger) and Presentation mode.
Export	Every export format, grouped by what you would do with it.
⋯	Layout and display options — direction, flow animation, node colours, node IDs, collapse/expand, structured layout.

The rail and panel (left)

The narrow rail is the project’s table of contents. Each tile opens a panel beside it:

• Convos — the conversations in the project. Click one to put it on the canvas; New conversation… adds another. The count of nodes is shown under each.
• Actors — the characters. Each has a name, a description, a portrait and an Is player flag; the badge on the tile is how many there are.
• Items and Places — the other two asset lists. Items double as quests in some engines; Places can carry a scene picture that Play mode shows behind the dialogue.
• Vars — the variables your conditions test and your scripts set. Each has a name, an initial value and a description.
• Reviews — every reviewer note in the project, filtered by open / resolved.
• Details — project title, author, description, the project-level Lua script, localisation languages, dialogue emphasis styles and custom field templates.

The « at the top of the panel collapses it to give the canvas more room.

The canvas (middle)

The graph. Each card is a node showing its title, speaker → listener, dialogue and — when it is a choice — the menu text in a button. Under the card, + Add player choice adds a child in one click; the ＋ on the right-hand edge is the drag handle for linking.

• Drag the background to pan, scroll to zoom, or use the − / % / + controls bottom-left. The two buttons beside them fit the view and jump to START.
• The minimap in the corner shows the whole conversation; click it to jump.
• Right-click a node for its context menu: add child node or group, cut, copy, paste as children, paste & splice, select subtree, link to another conversation, make group node, colour, delete.

The inspector (right)

Everything about the selected node, in three tabs:

• Content — title, actor and conversant (with a swap button), dialogue, player choice text, node colour, the group node flag, and Advanced custom fields. The emphasis buttons (em1–em4, [var], [pic]) insert inline markup at the cursor, and a live preview shows how the line renders.
• Media — audio, video, animation and picture slots, with upload, URL attach, preview and playback. See Media.
• Logic — the condition, what to do if it is false, priority, the node’s Lua script, links to other conversations, and reviewer notes. See Logic and variables.

The » collapses the inspector. Select several nodes and the inspector offers bulk actions: set a field, actor, conversant or review status on all of them at once.

Dark and light themes

Click your avatar in the bottom-left corner and choose Light mode or Dark mode. The choice is remembered per browser.

Working on a small screen

The layout adapts. On a narrow window the rail and its panel become one full-screen sheet, and toolbar buttons that no longer fit move into the ⋯ menu. On a phone, the player link from the Share dialog opens the story full-screen with no editor chrome at all — the right way to read a draft on the train.

Keyboard navigation

You can build an entire tree without touching the mouse:

Key	Action
Tab	New child of the selected node
Enter	New sibling
Arrow keys	Move between nodes
Home	Jump to START
Ctrl+↑ / ↓	Reorder among siblings — this is the order choices appear in
Double-click a node’s text	Edit in place; Enter commits, Esc cancels
Delete	Delete the selected node(s) or link

The full list, including clipboard, zoom and search, is on Keyboard shortcuts.

Presentation mode

Play ▾ → Presentation mode hides the editor chrome and leaves only the canvas — for demos, screenshots and pitch meetings. Esc returns.