Organise your works in the workspace

The workspace is where everything you write in Ilena is kept and arranged: a tree with your author node at the top, the projects you create to group works, and the works themselves. Open it to start a new song, to gather songs into a project, to set a copy aside before reworking it, or to give a work its language and tags.

Open the workspace

Press ⌘ + O, select Workspace in the column on the left, or open the Tools menu and select Workspace. Selecting Workspace in the column again closes it.

The tree starts with your author node, which carries your pen name. Right-click any row to see what you can do with it.

The workspace tree: the author node Solo Artist, the projects Weird and Night Songs with their works, and the menu of a work, with Open, Rename, History, Duplicate, Export and Move to trash.
The tree, with the menu that a right-click opens on a work.

Create a project or a work

  1. Right-click your author node or a project, and select New Project or New Work.
  2. A name field opens in the tree. Type a name and press Enter, or press Escape to create nothing.

A new work opens in the editor straight away and the workspace closes. A new project appears in the tree and the workspace stays open.

Open a work

Double-click the work in the tree, or right-click it and select Open. The work opens in the editor.

Rename a project or a work

  1. Right-click the row and select Rename.
  2. Type the new name and press Enter. Escape keeps the old name.

Move a work into a project

Drag the work onto a project row and release it. The work moves inside that project.

Duplicate a work

Right-click a work and select Duplicate. A new work named after the original followed by (copy) appears beside it, with the same content. From then on the two are independent: what you change and save in one does not reach the other. Only works can be duplicated.

Export a work from the tree

Right-click a work, point to Export and select PDF, Text (.txt) or Markdown (.md). Your browser downloads that work, whether or not it is the one open in the editor, and the work stays where it is. The file holds the last saved version. Only works have an Export entry: the author node and projects do not. The formats are described in Export a work.

The menu of the work City Lights at Night, with Export pointed at and its submenu open: PDF, Text (.txt) and Markdown (.md).
The Export submenu, in the menu of a work.

Example: set a copy aside in another project

The author node Docs Walk holds two projects, Night Songs and Drafts. Night Songs holds the work City Lights at Night, with two lines: Neon signs are blinking slow and Taxis hum where rivers flow.

  1. Right-click City Lights at Night and select Duplicate. City Lights at Night (copy) appears beside it, with the same two lines.
  2. Drag the copy onto Drafts and release it. The copy moves into Drafts.
  • Docs Walk
    • Night Songs, a project
      • City Lights at Night, a work
    • Drafts, a project
      • City Lights at Night (copy), a work
The tree after the duplicate and the move.

Night Songs keeps the original and Drafts holds the copy. Words added to the copy and saved did not reach the original.

Move a project or a work to the trash

  1. Right-click the work or the project and select Move to trash.
  2. The row leaves the tree at once, with no confirmation, and a notification says Work moved to the trash. It stays there 30 days. To change your mind, select Undo in the notification: the work goes back where it was.
The notification after a work was moved to the trash: Work moved to the trash. It stays there 30 days., with the Undo button.
The notification shown for ten seconds after a work goes to the trash.

To move several works at once, hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows) and click each work to add it to the selection or take it out, or click one work and hold Shift while clicking another to select every work between them. Projects are never part of the selection. Right-click one of the selected works and select Move 2 works to trash — the number is the number of works selected. Dragging still moves a single work.

While two or more works are selected, the menu of a selected work greys out Open, Rename, History, Duplicate and Export: only the move to the trash acts on the selection. To open, rename, duplicate or export one work, right-click a work that is not part of the selection, or click a single work first so that the selection is only that one.

Two works selected, City Lights at Night and Neon Rain, and the menu of one of them: Open, Rename, History, Duplicate and Export greyed out, and Move 2 works to trash available.
The menu of a selected work when two works are selected.

A project can go to the trash only once it is empty: while it holds a work or another project, its Move to trash is greyed out. Works already in the trash no longer count, so a project whose works you have all moved to the trash can follow them. Your author node cannot be moved to the trash.

The work you have open can go to the trash too: it closes and the editor shows no work. If it has unsaved changes, the Unsaved changes dialog asks first: select Save & Close or Discard, or close the dialog to keep the work open and move nothing. While it is in the trash, a work does not appear in Find work.

Restore or erase from the trash

Select Trash at the bottom of the column on the left, or open the Tools menu and select Trash. The trash lists one line per work or project, each with its icon, its name, and the days left before the nightly purge erases it — 28 days, then 1 day, then tonight once the thirty days are over.

The trash: the project Drafts and the works Morning Draft and City Lights at Night, each with its icon, its name and the days left before it is erased, and the round Empty trash button at the top right.
The trash, with a project and two works, each showing the days left before it is erased, and the Empty trash button at the top right.

Right-click a line, or select its ⋮ button, to open its menu:

  • Restore puts the work or the project back in its project, at the place it had. If that project is in the trash too, it comes back with it.
  • Erase asks Erase name for good? This cannot be undone. For a project, the question also says how many works in the trash go with it. Select Delete to erase, or Cancel to keep it.

Empty trash is the round button at the top right of the trash. It is greyed out while the trash is empty, and asks the same confirmation before it erases everything in the trash.

A work or a project stays in the trash for thirty days. After that, Ilena erases it automatically.

See and edit details

Click a row once to select it: its details appear below the tree. The left one of the two round buttons at the top of the workspace, Toggle details, hides them and shows them again. To change details, select the round button in the corner of the card, Edit details, make your changes, then select Save or Cancel.

The Work details card of a selected work: Name, Language, Emotions, Tags and Modified, with the Edit details button in its corner.
The details of the selected work, as they appear below the tree.
Work details
Name, Language, Emotions, Tags and Modified, the date of the last save. You can edit the name, the language (English, French or Spanish) and the tags: type a tag and press Enter. You do not edit the emotions: Ilena fills them in from the text of the work when you save it. A work saved with the two lines Neon signs are blinking slow and Taxis hum where rivers flow, for example, showed serenity.
Project details
Name, About and Tags; an empty field shows a dash. You can edit About and Tags. To change the name, use Rename.
Author
Your pen name and a short introduction written from your answers to four questions. Edit details opens About you, where you can revise those answers: What brings you here?, What place does writing hold for you?, What themes do you like to explore in your writing? and How would you describe your style?