The Project Sidebar

The project sidebar shows the structure of the project you have open. It is the map beside the editor: sections, documents, and the order in which they belong.

Use the sidebar when you want to move through a project, add new material, rename parts of the structure, or check how the whole work is arranged.

Understanding the project tree

The project tree is made of sections and documents. Sections group related documents. Documents contain the actual writing.

A project can be simple, with only a few documents, or more structured, with several sections. You do not need to create a perfect structure before writing. It can grow with the project.

Sections

Sections help divide a project into larger parts. They may represent book parts, chapter groups, poetry cycles, essay groups, research areas, or any other useful division.

Documents

Documents are the individual pieces of writing inside the project. A document may be a chapter, scene, poem, essay, fragment, appendix, draft note, or any other unit that makes sense for the work.

Open a writing document’s actions menu and choose Share document when you want to create a link that lets someone read but not edit that document. Research documents and sections cannot be shared. See Sharing and Exporting → Sharing with a Reader for the full sharing workflow.

Folding the project tree

Choose the chevron at the left of the Writing header to fold or unfold the whole writing tree. This hides or reveals its sections and documents without changing their order or content.

To change only the section rows, open the Structure menu from the ellipsis in the Writing header and choose Expand all sections or Collapse all sections. You can still use an individual section’s chevron when you want to fold just that section. The research structure has the same commands in its own actions menu.

Searching for documents

The sidebar can include a search or filter field for quickly finding documents by title. This is different from full project search, which searches inside the contents of the documents.

The sidebar filter searches titles only. It ignores capital letters and matches any part of a document or section title. When a section title matches, the whole section remains visible. When a document inside a section matches, the section remains visible with only the matching document shown.

Creating sections and documents

Use the sidebar controls to create a new section or document in the current project. New items can be renamed and moved later, so it is fine to start with a simple placeholder.

Open the ellipsis at the top of the writing tree to use the Structure menu. Choose New section to create a section, or New document to create a document at the top level.

Use a section’s Section actions menu to choose New document when you want the new document created inside that section, or New subsection to create a section inside it. Sections nest one level deep: a section can hold subsections, and a subsection holds only documents. In the research tree, Research actions includes New section and New document; research documents are created inside research sections. Research sections nest the same way writing sections do, one level deep, through New subsection in a section’s own actions menu. There are no dedicated keyboard shortcuts for creating sections or documents.

Archive and Trash

Open a section or document’s actions menu when you want to take it out of the book. Choose Archive for material you want to keep but no longer count as part of the book. Choose Delete to move a mistake or unwanted material to Trash. Both actions ask for confirmation.

Archive and Trash appear below the writing and research trees under Out of the project. A bin stays hidden while it is empty. Each bin is its own collapsible tree, so a section keeps its subsections and documents inside it when it moves.

Material in either bin is left out of project counts, project search, reader shares, custom templates, and PDF, EPUB, HTML, and Markdown exports. A Spleen Archive backup still includes it. You can open a binned document to read it, but it is read-only until restored.

Archive and Trash use the same restore workflow. Their different names help you remember why you moved the material out of the book.

Restoring sections and documents

Open the binned section or document’s actions menu and choose Restore. Restoring does not ask for confirmation. Spleen returns the item to the section it came from when that section still exists in the book, or to the top level when it does not. A message tells you where it landed.

Restoring a section also restores everything still inside it. Restoring one document or subsection from a binned section brings back only that item and its own contents. The rest of the section stays in its bin.

Permanently removing material

Open a section or document’s actions menu inside Archive or Trash and choose Delete for good when you are certain it is no longer needed. This permanently removes the item. Deleting a section for good also removes all of its contents. Spleen asks for confirmation because this cannot be undone.

To remove everything in one bin, open the ellipsis in the Archive or Trash header and choose Empty archive or Empty trash. This also asks for confirmation and permanently removes every section and document in that bin.

Removing a section but keeping its contents

Remove, keep contents is a separate action for a section that is still in the book. It removes only the section and moves its documents and subsections up one level. Unlike moving the section to Archive or Trash, nothing can undo this structural change.

Neither the bin actions nor Remove, keep contents are available while the whole project is archived. Unarchive the project first.

Research area

The research structure is a separate tree for supporting material that belongs near a project but not in the main writing export. Create it from the Create research row below the writing tree. Spleen starts it with Ideas, People, Landscape, and References.

When research is visible, open the ellipsis in its header to use Research actions. This menu contains New section, New document, Expand all sections, Collapse all sections, and Hide research. When you hide existing research, a Show research row appears below the writing tree so you can bring it back. Research sections and documents can be added, renamed, moved, reordered, searched, archived, and sent to Trash like writing items. Moving a research section to a bin carries its documents with it.

Resizing writing and research

When research is visible on a larger screen with a mouse or trackpad, the writing and research areas scroll independently. Drag the horizontal divider between them up or down to give either tree more room. Spleen remembers the chosen height in that browser.

Double-click the divider to return to the default split. With the divider focused, use Up Arrow or Down Arrow to resize it, hold Shift for a larger step, or press Home to restore the default. On smaller screens and devices using touch as their main pointer, the trees use one continuous sidebar instead of the resizable split.

Reordering the project

As a project develops, you can move documents and sections into a better order. This helps the project structure follow the work rather than locking the structure too early.

Opening reorder mode

Open the ellipsis in the Writing header and choose Reorder to reorder the main project. If research is visible, open its own ellipsis and choose Reorder to reorder that area.

Reorder mode replaces the editor or project overview in the main workspace with a focused list of sections and documents. On a small screen, the sidebar closes so the list has room. Only one area is shown at a time: writing and research cannot be mixed or dragged into each other.

If a title filter is active in the sidebar, clear it before opening reorder mode. Archived projects and other projects you cannot edit cannot be reordered.

Reordering by dragging

Drag a row by the handle at its right edge using a mouse, pen, or touch. Move up and down to choose the position, and sideways to choose the level: dragging right takes the item one level in, dragging left takes it one level out. A slot opens where the item will land, indented to the level it will take, and the section it would sit inside is outlined. The list scrolls automatically when you drag near its top or bottom edge. Release the item to drop it there.

If no slot appears, that position is not available. A section cannot go inside itself, nothing may nest deeper than a subsection, and a research document cannot sit outside a section.

In the writing area, you can:

reorder loose documents and sections at the top level;
reorder documents and subsections inside a section;
move a document from one section or subsection to another;
drop a loose document into a section or subsection;
move a document out of a section to the top level;
nest a section inside another section, or move it back out.

Drag a document right to move it into the section above, and left to move it back out. Move it up and down to choose its position. To place it at the very start or end of the project, drag above the first row or below the last one.

Dragging a section right nests it in the section above, one level deep. A section that already holds subsections cannot be nested, since that would push its subsections too deep, so its slot stays at its own level. Moving a section always carries everything inside it, and its contents are hidden while it travels.

Research follows the same drag pattern, with one important difference: research documents must remain inside research sections. You can reorder research sections, nest one inside another, reorder their documents, and move documents between research sections, but you cannot move a research document to a loose top level.

If you move the pointer well outside the reorder list, the floating row shows that the drag will be cancelled. Release it there, or press Escape while dragging, to leave that item in its previous position.

Collapsing sections while reordering

Use a section’s chevron to collapse or expand it. Choose Collapse all or Expand all in the reorder header when you want to manage every section at once. A collapsed section opens when you drag a document into it.

Collapsing here only makes a large reorder list easier to scan. It is not saved as the normal sidebar’s expanded or collapsed state.

Reordering with the keyboard

The first row receives focus when reorder mode opens. Use these controls:

Up Arrow and Down Arrow move focus through the visible rows.
Home and End move focus to the first or last visible row.
Alt/Option + Up Arrow and Alt/Option + Down Arrow move the focused item one step. A document can cross a section or subsection boundary as it moves, one level at a time. A section swaps places with its neighbours only.
Alt/Option + Left Arrow moves the focused item out one level: a document leaves its section, a subsection becomes a top-level section.
Alt/Option + Right Arrow moves the focused item into a nearby section, when the depth allows it.
Enter or Space collapses or expands the focused section.
Escape leaves reorder mode when no drag is active.

Focus follows an item after it moves. If you use a screen reader, Spleen also reads out the item’s new section and position.

Saving and finishing

Each successful drag or keyboard move is saved immediately. A moved row receives a quiet highlight for the rest of the reorder session. There is no separate final save step.

Choose Done or press Escape when you have finished. With a mouse you can also click the empty space beside or below the list. Leaving reorder mode does not undo earlier moves. If Spleen cannot save a move, it shows an error and reloads the last saved structure. If the current document still has an unresolved save problem, Spleen asks you to save that document before changing the project structure.

Moving one document directly

The Document actions menu still lets you relocate one document without opening reorder mode. Choose Move document, which appears whether the document sits inside a section or at the top level. Choose a destination section, or choose No section (root) for a writing document, then select Move. This changes which section contains the document. Use reorder mode when its exact position also matters or when you want to rearrange several items.

The Project actions menu sits in the sidebar footer. It contains Rename, Status, Export, Share project or Stop sharing project, Save as template when available, Archive, and Delete. On larger screens, choose Export to open the format submenu. On smaller screens, Status and Export each open a separate screen within the actions panel. Use Back to return to the main actions.

This is separate from the Structure menu in the Writing header, which only creates items and expands or collapses writing sections.