Help using Dexes.

Signing In

Dexes uses Google Sign-In. Your stories are tied to your Google account, so there is no separate password to manage. If the app is at capacity when you first sign in you are placed on a waiting list, and signing in again later admits you automatically once space opens.

Your First Story

After signing in you land on Stories & Maps, which is the home of the app. Click the dashed + Add New Story row at the bottom of the list, give it a name and a Type, and it appears immediately.

If you have no stories yet you are also offered a demo story: a complete sample world you can pull apart to see how the pieces fit. It deletes itself after thirty days unless you keep it. See Stories & Maps.

How the Pages Fit Together

Everything you make belongs to one story. A story holds:

• Maps, image maps with pins, drawn regions, labels and routes.
• Codex, the encyclopedia of people, places, things and anything else you define.
• Timeline, the days or milestones the rest of the story hangs from.
• Ideas, loose notes that do not belong anywhere yet.
• Tome, long-form writing in Markdown.
• History, an automatic event feed for any Codex object.
• Graph, a visual map of how Codex objects connect.

These are not separate silos. A map pin can be linked to a Codex character; that character's panel then shows a Found on Map link back. A Tome page can link to a Codex entry, and that entry gets a Found in Tome link in return. Timeline days drive what is visible on maps and in the Codex at once.

The Two Navigation Bars

Every page inside a story has a thin bar down each edge. Hover or tap a button to see its name.

• Left bar, your account and tools: Back, Home, Profile, Library, Help, Feedback. Some pages add a button at the bottom of this bar for a page-specific view toggle.
• Right bar, this story's pages: Maps, Codex, Timeline, Ideas, Tome, History, Settings. On a tabletop story the bottom of this bar also carries Dice and Initiative.

The Map Editor has the same two bars plus its own map tools at the bottom left. The Stories page only shows the right bar once a story is expanded, since until then there is no story to navigate.

The Active Story

The story you are working in travels with you in the page address, so switching pages with the right bar never loses your place. The story name is shown in the top bar on Codex, Map Editor and Graph. Bookmarking a page address takes you back to exactly that story, map or page.

Saving

Nothing has a Save File command. Edits are written as you make them, and other people looking at the same story see them arrive live. Some panels, such as the Map Editor's editing drawer, hold your changes until you click the check mark, and they will prompt you rather than let you walk away from unsaved work.

Undo

Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac) undoes your last edit on any page that edits story data, and Ctrl+Y puts it back. Deleting something shows an Undo message for five seconds before the delete is committed. See Keyboard Shortcuts.

Getting Help Inside the App

Small circled question marks sit next to controls whose behavior is not obvious. Click one for a short explanation in place; some of them link back to the matching section of this page.

This is the home page of the app, reached with Home in the left bar or Maps in the right bar. It lists your stories, and expands one of them at a time to show the maps inside it.

The Story List

Click a story row to expand it. Expanding a story does three things: it reveals that story's maps underneath the row, it makes that story the active one for every other page, and it turns on the right navigation bar. Clicking the same row again collapses it. Browser Back and Forward move between stories you expanded, without reloading.

Hover a row and click the star to favorite it. Favorited stories float to the top of the list.

The Story Menu

Right-click a story row, or long-press it on a touch screen, for everything you can do with the story as a whole:

• Export Story downloads the entire story as a single zip file, including the images your objects actually use.
• Import into Story… reads one of those zips back in. See below.
• Copy duplicates the story into a new one of your own.
• Share opens the sharing dialog. See Sharing & Roles.
• Transfer Ownership… hands the story to another account, with their agreement.
• Settings opens Story Settings over whatever page you are on. See Story Settings.
• Delete removes the story.

Maps

The panel that opens under an expanded story is the map list for that story. Click a map to open the Map Editor.

• + Add New Map at the bottom right of the list creates one.
• Filter by category at the top left narrows the list. Categories are defined per story in Story Settings, and each map picks the ones that apply to it.
• Maps can be nested one level deep. A parent map gets a chevron; clicking the chevron opens and closes its children, while clicking the name still opens the map. Use Add Sub-map, Move into… and Move to Top Level in a map's own right-click menu to arrange them. Nesting is grouping for your benefit; it does not change the maps themselves.
• A map's right-click menu also offers Open Editor, Copy, Copy to World…, Settings (name, description and categories) and Delete.

Export and Import

An export is a zip holding the story's data plus every image under your own uploads that the story references. Stock images are not copied, since they are already available to everyone.

When you import, you choose how it lands:

• Overwrite replaces the target story's data with the import.
• Add to existing brings everything in alongside what is already there, with fresh identifiers, so nothing collides. You can import the same file twice, or back into the story it came from, without damage. A checkbox decides whether the story's own name, description and calendar settings come along too.

Images are re-uploaded into your own account and the imported objects are pointed at the new copies, so an import into a different account still shows its pictures.

The Demo Story

A new account is offered a ready-made sample story. It is a full sandbox, so you can change anything in it. It carries a gold badge counting down the days it has left, and it deletes itself after thirty days. If you want to keep it, use Keep as My Story in its right-click menu, which turns it into an ordinary story of yours. A demo story cannot be shared, exported or used as the target of a copy, because it is going to disappear.

Shared With Me

Stories other people have shared with you appear in their own section below your own, with a badge showing your role and the name of whoever shared it. Expanding one works exactly like your own: its maps open underneath and the right bar targets it.

A shared row has its own right-click menu with Hide from my list, which tidies it away without leaving the story; an eye button appears at the bottom of the left bar to bring hidden ones back. Co-GMs also get Story Settings there. To actually leave a story, use the Leave button on the row.

Ownership Offered to You

If someone offers you their story, it appears in a section above Shared with me for you to accept or decline. Accepting physically moves the story and its files into your account, where it counts against your own plan. See Sharing & Roles.

The Codex is the encyclopedia of your story: every person, group, item, place, nation, biome and anything else you decide to track. Open it with Codex in the right bar.

The page is a tree of everything on the left and the details of whatever you selected on the right. Drag the divider between them to resize the tree; double-click the divider to reset it.

Types and Sections

Every object belongs to a type, and each type is one collapsible section in the tree. Six types are built in: Characters, Groups, Items, Locations, Nations and Biomes.

Add your own with Add Codex Type at the bottom of the tree. You choose a starting template, and a custom type can hold any fields you like. On a tabletop story the template list also offers NPC, Creature, Player Character, Quest, Encounter, Session Log, Handout and Rollable Table, each arriving with sensible fields already set up.

Section Header Buttons

Each section header carries, left to right: a chevron that collapses it, a star that favorites it, the name, a pencil that opens the type's editor, and a plus that adds a new object. Favorited sections float to the top of the tree.

Adding and Editing Objects

Click the plus in a section header. The object is created immediately and its panel opens with the name field ready to type in. There is no separate save step; every field writes as you leave it.

The detail panel shows the object's picture, its color, and its fields. Under the picture you get:

• Library to pick an existing image, Upload to add a new one, Remove to clear it.
• Frame Shape to render the picture as a circle, rounded square, square or hexagon.
• With no picture set, a row of color swatches, plus a custom color picker. The same palette is used by every type, and the color also drives the object's dot in the tree.

Searching and the Nested View

Click Search all… at the top of the tree to filter every section at once; sections with no match drop out of the list. The button beside it switches between two views:

• Standard is a flat A to Z list per type.
• Nested shows each object with its related objects indented beneath it: the items a character holds, the members of a group, the settlements in a nation, and anything you have deliberately nested. Rows with children get a caret; everything starts collapsed.

In the nested view you can drag one row onto another. Where the pairing means something, a real relationship is recorded: an item dropped onto a character becomes an item they hold, a character dropped onto a group becomes a membership, a location dropped onto a nation is assigned to it. Any other pairing is stored as plain nesting. On a touch screen, or if you would rather not drag, use Nest under… in the row's right-click menu.

The Row Menu

Right-click any row, or long-press it, for:

• Select Objects turns on multiple selection so the rest of the menu acts on everything you picked.
• Duplicate and Duplicate to World… copy the object, the second into any other story of yours.
• Nest under… and Un-nest in the nested view.
• On a tabletop story, Assign to player…, and the visibility items described under Tabletop Tools.
• Delete, which gives you five seconds to undo.

Editing a Type

The pencil in a section header opens that type's editor in the detail panel. You can set its name, icon, color, whether the icon is drawn solid, and whether the section is hidden from your own tree. Below that, the Fields list is where a type's shape is decided:

• Add a field, rename it, change its type, mark it required, or drag it to reorder.
• Field types include text, long text, number, date, yes/no, a dropdown, chips, color, an image, a progress clock, and a relationship to another type.
• The eye hides a field from the panel. A second control hides it from players only.
• Built-in fields can be reordered and hidden but not renamed or retyped, because other parts of the app read them.
• A dropdown field whose options belong to the whole story, such as a character's Type or an item's Category, is edited here too. Changing that list changes it everywhere in the story at once.

Deleting a type asks what to do with the objects in it: move them to another type, or delete them along with it.

Layouts

The panel's layout is yours to arrange. Use the Layout options button in the panel header to enter Edit Layout, then drag fields into order, group them into named sections, hide the ones you never use, and restore them from the tray at the bottom. The same menu saves a layout as a template, applies a template, sets the current arrangement as the default for the whole type, or resets one object back to that default.

Relationships

Relationship fields, such as a group's members or a character's items, are edited as rows in the panel, and each row can carry the day it started and the day it ended. Those dates are what the Object History feed and the Relationship Graph read.

Right-click a row under Items Held to move that item to another holder, either transferring it on a chosen day or letting it appear with both.

Connections to Other Pages

• An object linked to a map pin gets a Found on Map row with a link straight to that pin.
• An object referenced from a Tome page gets a Found in Tome row with a link to the page.
• The graph button on a row opens the Relationship Graph focused on that object.
• A location can be given a Linked Map, which is what makes Open Map appear on its pin in the Map Editor.

Timeline Filtering and Day Snapshots

When a day is selected in the top bar, the tree hides objects that do not exist on that day, using dates such as died on, disbanded on or destroyed at. With no day selected the bar turns red and everything is shown at its starting position.

Editing a field marked as snapshot-able while a day is selected records the value for that day rather than overwriting the object, so details can change across the story. See Timeline.

The Map Editor draws pins, regions, routes, labels, pictures and text boxes over a background image you supply. Open a map from the map list under an expanded story on Stories & Maps.

The Bars

• Left bar, top: Back, Home, Profile, Library, Help, Feedback.
• Left bar, bottom, map tools: Player View (tabletop stories), Layers, Customize Map, Reset Zoom, and Hide Menus, which clears every panel off the screen for a clean view and stays visible so you can bring them back.
• Right bar: the story's other pages, with Dice and Initiative at the bottom on a tabletop story.
• Top bar: the story and map name, the object search, and the timeline picker.

A Background Image

A new map is empty until you give it a background. Open Customize Map and use Upload Image or Pick from Library under Background Image. Every object on the map is positioned relative to this image, so replacing it with one of a different shape will move things around; the app warns you before that happens. If you need a map to work from, the map design recommendations list good tools.

Adding Objects

Right-click empty map, or long-press it, and use the Add to Map group:

• Add Story Object places a pin. Pick a Codex type to place a pin already linked to one of your objects, or Add Pin for a free-standing marker. A linked pin borrows the object's name, description and picture, and keeps them in step.
• Add Nation and Add Biome draw a region, either by clicking corners (Draw Polygon) or by tracing freehand. When you close the shape you choose or create the nation or biome it represents.
• Add Label writes text along a path you draw, or around a circle (Arc Label).
• Add Other inserts a picture, a text box, or a line. Lines are ribbons with a type, such as road, river, border or trade route.

Under Other Tools you also get Measure Distance, which shows the length of each leg and the running total in your map's own units, and Select Objects….

Editing an Object

Right-click an object for its own menu, or double-click it to open its panel. Panels slide in from the left edge in an editing drawer and the map shrinks to make room, panning the thing you are editing back into view if it would have been covered. Only one panel is open at a time, and if you try to switch away from unsaved changes you are asked to save, discard or stay.

Each panel ends in a row of buttons: a trash can on the left, then the check mark to save and the cross to discard. The check mark pulses while you have unsaved changes. Section headers inside a panel collapse, and remember whether you left them open.

If two objects overlap, the right-click menu shows a section for each of them, so you can reach the one underneath.

Styling

Choose Edit … Style from an object's menu to open the style panel in the same drawer. Everything there is a live preview: the map updates as you drag a slider, but nothing is written until you click the check mark, and the cross puts it back.

Two buttons at the bottom left of the style panel matter:

• Set as Default makes the current settings the default for that kind of object in this story, so everything you create afterwards starts out that way.
• Reset to Default pulls those defaults back onto the object you are editing.

The Customize Map panel's Style Defaults tab lists every default the story is holding and lets you clear them.

Layers

Open Layers from the bottom left. Layers are listed in drawing order, top of the list drawn on top. Drag to reorder, use the eye to show or hide, the padlock to lock, and the gear to rename a layer, change its kind or delete it.

Alongside your own layers the list holds five built-in groups, Pins, Map Labels, Images, Text Boxes and Lines, and those can be dragged anywhere in the stack too. Move an object between layers with Change Layer in its right-click menu.

On a tabletop story a layer's gear also offers Show to players, which is a display filter, and Hide contents, which actually withholds everything on that layer. See Tabletop Tools.

Movement Paths

A pin or a picture can move over time. Choose Plot Movement…, click out the route, and say how many stops it has; each stop is then assigned to a timeline day. The object jumps to the right position for whichever day you are viewing, and the route can be drawn on the map as a dashed line with numbered stops.

Once a path exists the menu offers Edit Movement Path… instead, and the editor has a button to extend it further. Right-click the drawn route itself to edit or hide it.

The Scale Bar

The bar in the bottom right corner tells you how far a distance on the map really is, and everything that reports a distance uses it. Right-click it to set the scale:

• Set Segment Length… if you know the number.
• Measure Two Points… if you do not: click two places you know the distance between, then type that distance.
• Set Scale Unit Type… jumps to the unit field in Customize Map.
• Hide Scale Bar takes it off the screen; Show Scale Bar in the map's own menu brings it back.

Where Lines Cross

When two lines cross, a small marker appears at the crossing. Click it and say which line runs on top, and the other is drawn with a gap so the crossing reads like a bridge or a ford. You can also tell it to ignore that crossing.

Selecting Several Objects

Select Objects… lets you drag a box across the map. Click to add or remove one, shift-drag to add to the selection. The bar along the bottom then acts on everything selected at once.

Timeline on the Map

The picker in the top bar chooses which day you are looking at. Pins, regions, labels and lines disappear outside the days they exist for, and objects with a movement path move to their position for that day. With no day selected the bar is red and everything is drawn at its starting position.

A map can also run on its own numbered milestones instead of the story's calendar, set under Customize Map. That is useful for a dungeon or a single session, where story dates do not apply.

Finding Things

The magnifier in the top bar searches every pin, region, line, text box and label on the map by name and description, and clicking a result centers the map on it. A pin linked to a Codex object also has a View menu that opens that object in the Codex, its History or the Graph, each in a new tab.

Exporting a Picture

Export Map as PNG, at the bottom of Customize Map, saves the whole map as an image with all the panels and bars removed.

Pan and Zoom

Drag to pan. Two-finger scroll on a trackpad pans in any direction. Pinch to zoom, on a trackpad or a touch screen; a mouse wheel zooms, and so does holding Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) while you scroll. Reset Zoom in the bottom left fits the whole map on the screen again, and while the whole map is still on screen it turns into Back to Previous View, so a second press returns you to where you were. Pan or zoom in the meantime and it goes back to being a plain reset. Your position and zoom are remembered per map.

The Timeline page defines the days your story happens on, and the calendar those days belong to. Open it with Timeline in the right bar. It has two tabs.

Timeline Days

This tab is the list of days. Click any date or name to edit it in place; press Enter or click away to save.

• + Add Day creates one day with a date and an optional name.
• Add Range… creates a run of them at once, which is the quick way to lay down a month per entry or a stretch of consecutive days.
• Switch View toggles between a flat list and a Year, Month, Day tree.
• Days sort themselves into chronological order however you enter them.

Each row also carries two toggles. The person icon controls whether players can see that day at all, and the eye controls whether it appears in map timelines. Both are display filters that tidy the picker; they do not keep anything secret on their own.

Milestones Instead of Dates

Not every story wants calendar dates. Set Timeline mode to Milestones in the Calendar Settings tab and the first tab becomes a plain numbered list: M0, M1, M2, and so on, each with an optional name. You choose the prefix and whether numbering starts at zero or one. Everything else about the timeline works the same way.

Switching a story that already has days between the two modes warns you first, because the two are not the same information.

Calendar Settings

The second tab holds the timeline mode and, in calendar mode, the calendar itself. Choose the Gregorian preset for a real-world calendar with leap years and BC and AD years, or build your own: name the months, give each one a length, name the days of the week, and optionally name particular years.

Where Days Are Used

Days are chosen from the picker in the top bar of the Codex, Map Editor and Graph. Selecting one:

• hides Codex objects that are not alive on that day,
• hides map objects outside their visible-from and visible-until window, and moves anything with a movement path to its position for that day,
• hides graph connections that had not started or had already ended,
• and makes any field you edit save as a snapshot for that day rather than overwriting the object.

The picker itself comes in four styles, chosen per story. See Timeline Navigation Styles to compare them.

Snapshots

A snapshot records what a field was on a particular day. Ruling houses change, a city is renamed, an army's banner changes color: pick the day, edit the field, and the old value stays attached to the earlier days. Snapshots are listed in the object's panel, and every one of them shows up in the Object History feed where you can review or remove it.

A world picks one navigation style for its timeline picker in Story Settings → World → Timeline Nav. The picker sits in the top bar on the Codex and Map Editor pages, and the choice applies everywhere that bar appears.

The previews below are live and interactive. They run on a sample world of 25 days spread across four years of a seven-month custom calendar, so you can try each style before committing to one.

Whichever style you pick, the bar itself is color-coded: red while no day is selected and every object is drawn at its starting position, green on the most recent day, and gold on an earlier day. The + Day and +1 buttons on the right are always present; they are shown grayed out in these previews because there is no real world to add a day to.

The ← and → arrow keys step through days in every style, and ← on the first day returns to All Days, where every object is shown at once. Arrow keys are ignored while you are typing in a field.

Scrubber

The default, and the best fit for most worlds. Drag the thumb to move through time. Small dots mark every day and larger gold dots mark named events, so the density of your timeline is visible at a glance. The filled portion of the track shows how far through the timeline you are, and the counter on the right reads - / 25 until you pick a day.

Compact Nav + Popup

The ‹ and › arrows step one day at a time, and the center pill opens a searchable list grouped by year. Best for large timelines, because search jumps you straight to a day by name without scrolling. From the first day, ‹ goes back to All Days, as does the ← key.

Dropdown Select

A plain dropdown listing every day. It handles very long timelines without fuss and needs no learning, but the open list is drawn by your browser rather than by Dexes, so it will not match the frosted-glass styling everywhere, and phones open it as a full-screen picker. Choosing the blank Choose a day entry is the one way any style offers to go back to All Days from the bar itself.

Calendar Picker

The date pill opens a month grid. Only dates that already have a timeline entry are highlighted, and named events carry a dot. Click the month name for a month list or the year for a stepper, and use ‹ and › to move a month at a time. Best when the calendar date itself matters and your days are spread across many months. In the app, clicking an empty date offers to create a day there.

No Timeline

Choosing No Timeline hides the bar entirely and removes every date field from the Codex and Map Editor, along with the Plot Movement tools. Pick it for a world where nothing changes over time; you can switch a style back on later without losing any days you have already created.

Tome is a Markdown writing space for long-form work: a novel, a campaign journal, a gazetteer, session notes. Open it with Tome in the right bar. A story can hold as many Tomes as you like.

Tomes, Chapters and Pages

The first thing you see is the list of Tomes in this story, with a dashed New Tome row at the bottom. Opening one switches to the editor: a tree of Chapters and Pages on the left, and the writing area on the right.

• A Chapter can hold Pages, and one level of Sub-chapters which hold Pages of their own.
• Hover a Chapter or Sub-chapter and click + to add a page, or the pencil to rename it. Double-clicking a name also renames it.
• Right-click a row for New Sub-chapter, New Page, New Session Log, Rename, Duplicate, Move Up, Move Down, Move to Chapter… and Delete.
• Drag rows to reorder them, or to move a Page into a different Chapter. On a touch screen use the Move items in the menu instead.

Selecting a Chapter shows a read-only overview: every page in it, in order, rendered end to end, with an Edit button on each. Selecting a Page opens the editor. Your place in the tree, and which rows you had collapsed, are remembered per Tome.

Writing

The editor renders as you type. Headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, quotes, lists, checklists and dividers all show in their finished form; the line your cursor is on drops back to raw Markdown so you can edit it, and re-renders as soon as you move away. There is no preview button because there is no preview mode.

The toolbar down the left edge covers the same formatting, plus a table, a link, and a picture. Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+Shift+X and Ctrl+E apply bold, italic, strikethrough and inline code, and pressing them again removes the formatting. At the bottom of the toolbar are a serif reading font and a focus mode that hides both navigation bars.

The title row shows a live word count, reading time, and the save status. Saving is automatic.

Pictures

Insert Image from Library puts a picture from your Image Library or the stock catalog into the page. A picture behaves as a single object: click it to see its name, drag the gold handle at its lower right corner to resize it, and press Backspace beside it to remove it in one go.

Tables

Insert a table from the toolbar and then edit it directly. Click a cell to type in it, Enter moves down, Tab and Shift+Tab move across, and Escape cancels the cell. Drag the right edge of a header cell to set column widths. Right-click, or long-press, for insert and delete row and column, a border toggle, a header background color, resetting column widths, and deleting the table.

Linking

Type [[ anywhere, including inside a table cell, to search your Codex and the other Pages in this Tome. Pick a result and a link is inserted. Links to Codex objects show a small preview card when you hover them, and right-clicking one offers to open it in the Codex in this tab or a new one. A link whose target has been deleted is drawn as visibly broken rather than silently vanishing.

Links are two-way. Any Codex object referenced from a Tome page gets a Found in Tome row in its panel, pointing back at every page that mentions it.

Chapter Timeline Anchor

A Chapter can note the Start and End day it covers, chosen from the story's timeline. It is a note for you, shown under the chapter's name in the tree; it does not filter anything.

Duplicating and Moving

A Page can be duplicated within its Tome. A whole Tome can be duplicated inside this story, or copied to another story of yours, from the Tome list's right-click menu. Copying to another story does not rewrite the Codex links inside it, since the objects those links point at live in the story you copied from.

Ideas is the scratch pad for a story: notes that are not yet a character, a place or a chapter. Open it with Ideas in the right bar.

Working With Notes

Notes show as cards in a grid, each with a category badge, a title, and the start of its text. Click a card to open it in full.

• + Add Idea at the top left creates one.
• The search box filters by title and text; the two dropdowns beside it filter by category and change the sort order.
• Categories are free text you type on the note itself, and the filter list builds itself from whatever categories are in use.

Reading and Editing

The open card shows the whole note. The arrows at either side, and a swipe on a touch screen, move to the next and previous note without closing. Edit switches the card into a form for the title, category and text.

The Card Menu

Right-click a card, or long-press it, for Select Object(s), Duplicate, Duplicate to World… and Delete. Selection mode lets you act on several at once, and Duplicate to World copies notes into any other story of yours.

Object History answers one question: what happened to this thing, and when. Open it with History in the right bar. It reads what you have already recorded elsewhere, so there is nothing to fill in here.

Picking an Object

The left panel is the same tree as the Codex, one collapsible section per type, with the same search box. Rows carry a badge when the object has ended, and the same star and graph buttons the Codex rows have. Favorites are shared between the two pages.

The Feed

Selecting an object builds a feed in date order, with the day on the left and what happened on the right. Events are drawn from:

• the object's own dates, giving Born, Died, Formed, Disbanded, Founded, Abandoned, Dissolved and Destroyed,
• the relationships it is part of, giving Joined, Left, Member, Acquired, Lost, Assigned, Removed and Holds,
• and every day snapshot, shown as Updated. Expand one to see exactly which fields changed, and delete it from there if it was a mistake.

Because everything is derived, the way to add an event is to record it where it belongs: set a death date on the character, give a membership an end day, or edit a field while a timeline day is selected.

The Relationship Graph draws your Codex as a network: every object a dot, every relationship a line between two of them. It is the fastest way to see how a character reaches a nation, or which groups share members.

Open it from the graph button that appears when you hover a row in the Codex or Object History tree; that opens the graph focused on that object.

Two Modes

• Focus puts one object at the center with everything it connects to arranged in rings around it. The chips under the bar choose whether you see things 1 link away or 2 links away, and the connections are labeled with what they are.
• Whole World lays out every object in the story at once. The arrangement is computed once and remembered, so switching modes does not reshuffle it, and you can drag objects where you want them.

Double-click any object, or use the search box in the top bar, to refocus the graph on it.

Filtering

The chips under the top bar switch each Codex type on and off. The timeline picker works here too: with a day selected, connections that had not begun or had already ended are hidden, as are objects that no longer exist on that day.

The Side Panel

Click an object for a panel with its type, its name, Open in Codex, Focus on This Entity, and a list of everything it is related to. Clicking a name in that list selects and centers it.

Your mode, focus, filters and camera position are remembered for each story, so returning to the graph puts you back where you left it.

The Image Library is where your uploaded pictures live. It belongs to your account rather than to one story, so an image uploaded once can be used in any of them. Open it with Library in the left bar.

My Images

+ Upload Images takes several files at once and shows progress as they go. Anything you upload from inside the Codex or the Map Editor lands here too, tagged with what it was for.

• Search by name or tag.
• Click a tile to open the picture full size, rename it, see its dimensions and file size, and add or remove tags. Used in below it lists every object, map background, map image, text box and Tome page that uses that picture, and each row opens that thing in a new tab. The arrow keys, the chevrons, and a swipe move through the images you are currently looking at.
• The trash icon deletes an image. Before it does, it scans your stories for anything still using it and warns you.

Stock Images

The second tab is a shared catalog of free images available to every account. Filter by category or search, then use them anywhere you would use your own. They cost you nothing in storage. The eye on a tile hides an image you never want to see again; hidden ones stay in the list, dimmed, so you can bring them back.

Storage

The badge in the tab bar shows how much room you are using against your plan's limit, and the bar turns red as you approach it. Hover the badge to see the split between uploaded files and the story data itself. Stock images do not count. Deleting images you no longer use is the way to make room. See Your Account for what each plan allows.

Picking an Image Elsewhere

Wherever the app offers Pick from Library, you get the same two tabs. In a story that has been shared, a third tab, This World, holds the pictures that belong to the story itself rather than to one person, so co-GMs can see and use them. Choosing one of your own pictures for someone else's story copies it into that story, so it keeps working for everybody.

Story Settings opens over whatever page you are on, from the Settings button in the right bar, or from a story's right-click menu on Stories & Maps. Changes save themselves as you make them. It has two tabs.

World

• Name and Description of the story.
• Type, which is General, TTRPG (General) or TTRPG (D&D 5e). This is the switch that decides whether the story gets the tabletop tools at all, so it is worth setting correctly. See Tabletop Tools.
• Timeline Nav, which chooses how the timeline picker looks in the top bar, or turns the timeline off entirely for this story. The change takes effect immediately. See Timeline Navigation Styles.

Map Categories

The list of categories your maps can be tagged with, which is what the filter above the map list offers. Add one by typing it and pressing the plus; remove one with the cross on its chip. A new story starts with Political, Physical, Trade Routes, Military, Regional and Dungeon, and you are free to replace all of them.

A story can be shared with other Dexes accounts. Right-click a story you own on Stories & Maps and choose Share.

Inviting Someone

Type their email address, choose a role, and click Invite. Nothing is emailed: the story simply appears in their Shared with me list the next time they sign in. They need a Dexes account already; if the address has no account, you are told so, so you can ask them to sign up first.

The Three Roles

• Player reads the whole story and can edit exactly one thing: a character sheet you have assigned to them. They never see anything you have hidden from players.
• Observer reads and changes nothing.
• Co-GM can do everything you can, including seeing everything you have hidden. Only invite people you would tell your plot to.

Players and Observers are free and unlimited on every plan. Co-GM seats are part of the paid plans. The dialog shows the seats you have left.

Change someone's role from the dropdown beside their name, or remove them entirely with the cross. Removing someone takes their access away at once.

What a Player Sees

A player gets a slimmer version of the app. Ideas, Object History, Story Settings and the Image Library are not offered to them, the Timeline page becomes a read-only view of the calendar, and everything you have withheld is simply absent rather than greyed out. A viewing-only banner sits at the bottom of the screen for Observers.

Leaving a Story

A story someone shared with you has a Leave button on its row. Leaving removes your access; the story itself is untouched. If you only want it out of the way, use Hide from my list in the row's right-click menu instead.

Transferring Ownership

Transfer Ownership… hands a story permanently to another account. They have to accept, because a story carries a storage cost and responsibility for its contents. Once accepted, the story and all its files move to their account and count against their plan, everyone you had shared it with keeps their access, and you stay on as a co-GM so you do not lose the campaign.

Offers made to you appear in their own section at the top of Stories & Maps. A large story moves in stages, so keep the page open until it reports that it is finished.

Set a story's Type to TTRPG (General) or TTRPG (D&D 5e) in Story Settings and a set of tools for running a game appears. A General story never shows them.

Switching back to General is safe. It withdraws the tools for making more, but every clock, table and session log you already have keeps working, and switching back returns the tools.

Dice

Dice at the bottom of the right bar opens a roller. Type notation such as 2d6+3 and press Enter, or use the buttons for a single die, Advantage, Disadvantage or a stat line. Notation understands several terms joined with plus and minus, and a kh or kl suffix to keep the highest or lowest dice, as in 4d6kh3. Every roll shows the individual dice as well as the total.

Initiative

Initiative at the bottom of the right bar runs the fight. Add combatants by hand, or use Run on an Encounter object in the Codex to load its creatures in one go. The order sorts itself by initiative, Next turn moves down the list and rolls over into the next round, and a combatant at zero hit points is dimmed.

The hit points box takes more than a number: -4 and +3 adjust, 12/30 sets current and maximum, and a bare number sets the current value.

Everyone in the story sees the tracker live, so players can watch the order instead of asking whose turn it is. Only you can change it.

Tabletop Codex Types

The Codex type creator gains a second group of templates: NPC, Creature, Player Character, Quest, Encounter, Session Log, Handout and Rollable Table. Each arrives with fields already laid out, and the character-based ones inherit the normal character behavior, so you can drag an item onto an NPC to record that they carry it.

• A progress clock field is a dial you click to fill, for the things that are building toward something. Its number of segments is set on the field.
• A rollable table field gets a Roll button. Write one entry per line; a line starting 3x counts three times, and a line starting # is a comment.
• An Encounter gets a Run button that loads its creatures into the initiative tracker.
• Adding a Session Log offers to advance the story by one day at the same time, and numbers itself from your last session.

Assigning a Character Sheet

Assign to player… in a Codex row's menu gives one player the right to edit that one object. It is how a player keeps their own character sheet up to date without being able to touch anything else.

Keeping Things From Players

Three destinations, offered wherever an object can be withheld:

• Reveal to everyone, which every player in the story can see.
• Share with specific players…, which only the players you name can see.
• Hide from all players, which only you and your co-GMs can see.

This is real: a withheld object is not sent to a player's browser at all, so there is nothing for them to find. Revealing takes effect immediately, mid-session, with nothing for the player to reload. It works on:

• Codex objects, from a row's right-click menu.
• Map objects, from an object's right-click menu, from a whole layer's gear, or from a selection using Select Objects….
• Whole maps, from the map's right-click menu on Stories & Maps.
• Tomes, Chapters and Pages, from their right-click menus. Withholding a Chapter withholds its pages; withholding a Tome withholds everything in it.

Withheld things carry a badge so you always know what your players are missing.

GM Notes

Every Codex object has a GM Notes section at the bottom of its panel. Only you and your co-GMs can read it, so it is the place for the prep that belongs to a character rather than being one of their facts.

Player View

The masks button in the Map Editor's left bar redraws the map exactly as a player sees it, so you can check what you have given away before the session. The count beside the map name, N of M visible to players, is the same answer at a glance. Player view is for this sitting only and is never saved.

On a tabletop story, new map objects start hidden from players by default, so you can build in front of them. Turn that off in Customize Map under Players if you are building alone.

What Is Not a Secret

Some controls tidy your own view without keeping anything from anyone: hiding a Codex type from your tree, hiding a field on a panel, the player layout, a layer's Show to players setting, and a timeline day's player toggle. Each of them says so where it appears. To actually keep something from a player, withhold the object itself or put it in GM Notes.

Click Profile in the left bar for your account panel.

What It Shows

• Your name, the email you signed in with, and a count of your stories and maps.
• Support Tier, your current plan and, if you have linked Patreon, its status.
• Mailing List, an optional switch for occasional product news. It is separate from the required terms, off unless you turn it on, and can be changed at any time.
• Links to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The buttons at the top right of the panel are Log Out, Delete Profile, and Close.

Plans

Your plan sets how much you can store and how much you can create. Storage is enforced when you upload; the creation limits are gentle, meaning they stop you making something new but never lock what you already have. Players and Observers you share stories with are free on every plan; Co-GM seats are not.

If you support the project on Patreon, connect your account from the Support Tier section and your plan updates automatically. If a pledge ends you get a grace period before anything changes, and the app tells you when it begins.

Deleting Your Account

Delete Profile asks you to type your email address to confirm, then removes your stories, your uploaded files and your profile. If other people are relying on a story you own, hand it over first with Transfer Ownership…; see Sharing & Roles. Deleting your account cannot delete stories other people own.

Undoing Changes

• Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac) undoes your last edit.
• Ctrl+Y, or Ctrl+Shift+Z, puts it back.
• This works wherever you edit: the Codex, a map, the Tome, Ideas, the Timeline, the Image Library and Story Settings.
• While your cursor is in a text box, Ctrl+Z undoes your typing instead, as usual. Click outside the box first if you want to undo the last saved change.
• It reaches the edits you made on that page since you opened it, and it will not overwrite something a co-author changed in the meantime: if that happens it tells you so rather than replacing their work.
• Deleting something shows an Undo message for five seconds. That covers the delete itself; Ctrl+Z covers it afterwards.

Timeline Navigation

• → moves to the next timeline day.
• ← moves to the previous day, and on the first day returns to All Days, where every object is shown at once.
• Arrow keys are ignored while you are typing in a field.

Map Editor

• Esc cancels drawing, closes panels, and dismisses menus.
• Right-click / Long-press opens a context menu.
• Double-click finishes a path or polygon and opens object panels.
• Pinch, or a mouse wheel, or Ctrl/Cmd + scroll, zooms.
• Two-finger scroll on a trackpad pans the map.
• Drag pans or draws in an active draw mode.
• While drawing, the Finish button in the bar at the top does the same as a double-click, which is the way to finish on a touch screen.

Markdown Editor: Formatting

• Ctrl+B bold, Ctrl+I italic.
• Ctrl+Shift+X strikethrough, Ctrl+E inline code.
• Pressing the same shortcut again removes the formatting. They work inside table cells too.

Tome: Tables

• Enter commits a cell and moves down.
• Tab and Shift+Tab commit and move across.
• Esc cancels the cell.

Tome: Linking Autocomplete

• ↑ / ↓ moves through link results.
• Enter / Tab inserts the highlighted link.
• Esc closes link search.

Calendar Picker

• Click the month name to open the month list.
• Click the year to open the year stepper.
• Click an empty date cell to create a timeline day.

General

• Esc closes modals and overlays.
• Long-press for 500 ms acts like right-click on touch devices.