Quillweald Documentation

1. Quillweald overview

One project, several useful views

The Write, Board, Outline, Timeline, Graph, and Compile views all operate on the same documents and stable IDs. The ordered Board follows manuscript order, and a successful card move updates that order immediately. A freeform spatial board is not part of this release.

• Blank projects open directly into a focused structured editor.
• Novel, campaign, world-bible, short-fiction, game-narrative, and media-narrative templates are editable.
• Characters, places, factions, events, comments, links, and backlinks remain optional.
• Titles and file paths are labels, not identity, so renames do not break internal links.

2. Installation and automatic updates

Install only a verified Windows x64 release

1. Open the Quillweald card on Aethera Tools.
2. Wait for the card to identify the verified Windows x64 version, then choose Download.
3. Do not install an unsigned or local-only package as though it were a public release.
4. Choose a project location you control; projects are never stored in the installation directory.

The Tools page offers a download only after Aethera verifies the signed Windows release and hosted installer. The per-user installer does not request administrator access or offer a custom installation location.

An update waits while Quillweald is saving, recovering a project, checking a file, compiling, exporting, or publishing. Finish or cancel that work before restarting the app.

If release or signature verification fails, the public card stays disabled. Development packages are never offered here.

3. Your first project

Begin writing without setup

1. Choose New Blank Project, enter a title, and choose a save location.
2. Type in the first document. No world, campaign, sign-in, or publishing destination is required.
3. Add folders or documents with the Project tree when the draft needs structure.
4. Close and reopen the project; Quillweald returns to the saved document and editing location.

New From Template offers Novel and TTRPG Campaign structures alongside focused templates for series, collections, adventures, world bibles, game narrative, and video or audio narrative.

4. Writing, formatting, comments, and goals

Structured text without a complicated method

Use headings, emphasis, lists, task lists, quotes, links, tables, images with alt text and captions, callouts, footnotes, comments, highlights, scene breaks, and page breaks. Campaign documents also support semantic GM Note, Player Handout, Read-Aloud Text, Secret, Rules Reference, Encounter Note, Boxed Text, Developer Note, and Content Warning blocks.

• Find and replace targets the active document; Project Search is read-only and searches the local index.
• Continuous Draft edits the original selected documents and shows clear boundaries between them.
• Split view can place two writing documents, or two locations in the same document, side by side.
• Focus, typewriter, paragraph, sentence, theme, width, font, and spacing choices never alter stored text.
• Word goals and local statistics are optional and can be disabled without losing the manuscript.

5. Project tree, Planning Board, Outline View, and Collections

Organize the same work without duplicating it

Drag folders and documents in the tree, restore deleted items from project Trash, or use Board and Outline views to reorder documents, filter and sort metadata, and multi-edit status. The Document inspector edits synopsis, status, point of view, target, visibility, and compile inclusion. Saved Collections can be static selections or bounded dynamic queries over status, tags, item type, audience, modified date, and linked-resource state.

Permanent deletion is a separate confirmed action. Compile profiles can add chapter numbering without rewriting document titles.

6. Characters, lore, relationships, backlinks, and timeline

Connect narrative facts when they help the writing

Lore records have stable IDs, aliases, summaries, visibility, canon state, custom fields, relationships, linked documents, and resource links. Explicit inline entity links are rename-safe and create backlinks. Ordinary matching words are never silently converted. The desktop editor does not provide alias-aware mention suggestions.

Timeline keeps manuscript order separate from in-world chronology. Events use sortable start and end ordinals, an optional reader-facing display date, an approximate flag, linked lore, and a manuscript document. The view offers chronological and manuscript lanes plus a complete table. Relative or custom calendar authoring, zoom, and saved filters are not exposed. Graph shows one selected entity's relationship neighborhood and a complete accessible table.

7. Research and references

Know what is embedded and what is linked

Notes, images, PDFs, documents, bookmarks, audio, video, and citations can be embedded, linked to a local file, or represented by a revisioned Aethera media reference. Quillweald labels the storage mode and supports creating an embedded file, linked file, bookmark, or existing Aethera link. Existing references provide Open, Reveal in Folder, Relink or Replace Embedded Copy, and Remove Reference. Copy Citation, web-page archiving, and linked-to-embedded conversion are not exposed.

Imported documents, PDFs, SVG, HTML, and content packages are treated as data. Macros, scripts, PDF actions, native binaries, and project-supplied code never run.

8. Autosave, snapshots, versions, and recovery

Local transactions protect ordinary typing

Autosave debounces typing into SQLite transactions and maintains a recovery journal without waiting for a network. The status area distinguishes Saving, Saved, Offline, Recovery Needed, and Error.

• Create named document, folder, or project snapshots with optional notes.
• Compare snapshots side by side or inline, restore as a copy, or restore in place.
• A restore first protects the current version with a safety snapshot.
• Schema migration creates a verified backup and rolls back if migration or integrity checks fail.
• Recover Project explains abnormal-shutdown candidates without overwriting the only readable copy.

9. Visibility Inspector and Continuity Check

Preview what each audience can see

Author Only, GM, Player, and Public visibility applies to project items, documents, comments, lore, research, timeline events, and profiles. Embedded images follow the visibility of their document. The Visibility Inspector shows what is included or hidden before you compile or publish. Custom fields, assets, attachments, and resource links do not have separate field-level visibility controls.

Continuity Check runs only when requested. It reports structured issues such as broken links, duplicate aliases, basic timeline and lifespan conflicts, point-of-view requirements, empty included documents, stale resources, duplicate publication links, and research portability. You can ignore an item, mark an exception, open its source, or rerun one check; it does not try to judge your prose.

10. Compile profiles and export

Preview omissions before creating output

Compile selected documents, a folder, or a Collection. Profiles control audience, selection, title page, table of contents, document titles, comments, footnotes, images, chapter numbering, separators, heading offset, typography, page size, and margins. The preview shows rendered output, totals, aggregate visibility decisions, and warnings; hidden content is intentionally absent.

Quillweald supports tested DOCX, PDF, EPUB, HTML, Markdown, plain-text, and portable-project output. Export uses a cancellable background job, writes a temporary file, validates the result, and promotes it only after success. A failed export cannot corrupt the open project.

11. Atlas, VTT, Worldwright, Soundwright, and Aether Forge

Explicit links, revisions, ownership, and previews

• Atlas: link an existing entry, or publish a reviewed document, folder, or Collection as an Atlas Article and update the linked revision. Direct lore or research publication is not exposed.
• VTT journals: publish a player-safe handout or GM reference and update the same journal page.
• VTT characters: cache identity and portrait data while mechanical fields remain read-only.
• Worldwright: select and link a stable feature, cache its checked snapshot, and open the containing project. Feature-focused launch is not available.
• Soundwright: link or exclude a reviewed ambience, theme, effect, or soundscape reference. Embed and portable inclusion remain disabled until audio is ingested as a project asset.
• Aether Forge: export each selected writing document as one section in a versioned data-only handoff. This does not open Aether Forge or claim an import.

Current resource actions are Link, Refresh, Relink, Open, and Detach. Publish and VTT narrative mapping use separate reviewed flows, while Make Project Portable can preserve selected readable cached snapshots. Generic Embed Snapshot, Import Copy, and Synchronize actions are not exposed. Revision conflicts block commit and require a fresh preview; overwrite, merge, new-page, and Save as Copy tools are not exposed.

12. Make Project Portable and content packages

Move a readable project without silent dependencies

Make Project Portable scans linked files and remote references, reports missing assets, offers to embed local files and readable cached snapshots, preserves license metadata, hashes the package, and produces a validation report. The result opens offline on another machine.

Data-only template and content packages can contain templates, entity schemas, compile profiles, style data, planning frameworks, or adventure content. Package for Aethera Marketplace validates and creates a local package only; it does not claim to upload to a service that is not available.

13. Keyboard shortcuts

Common actions remain close at hand

Shortcut bindings are fixed in this release and cannot be customized.

14. Privacy, offline behavior, troubleshooting, and repair

Your local draft stays local

Writing, search, compile, statistics, snapshots, and recovery do not upload project data. Sign-in is optional until you explicitly use an Aethera connection. Project Health returns bounded record identifiers and counts, and narrowly structured recovery events remain local. This release has no persistent diagnostic-log or user-reviewable diagnostic-export workflow.

Project Repair is conservative: stop editing, preserve the original file, and use Project Health, recovery candidates, snapshots, a portable copy, or a verified backup before attempting replacement.

• For a missing linked file, use Research Relink or create a new embedded reference.
• For a deleted remote resource, keep the cached summary, then Refresh, Relink, or Detach.
• For an integrity warning, stop editing and use Project Health, recovery, snapshots, or a verified backup.
• If an update fails, reopen the last working installation or reinstall; project files remain separate.