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Editor menus and quick actions

The right-click menus, the double-Enter element picker, and the name suggestions that put your most-used actions one click — or one keystroke — away.

Most of the time you just type, and the page formats itself (see The editor). But when you want to do something to a scene — ask Nisaba to look at it, change a line's type, drop a note, or jump to its card on the board — the quickest way in is to right-click (or, on a touchscreen, press and hold). Nabu shows you a menu of actions that fit exactly where your cursor is.

There is no "/" slash menu in Nabu. When you want to reach for something deliberately, you use one of three things: the right-click menu below, the double-Enter element picker, or the keyboard shortcuts on Keyboard shortcuts.

Right-click anywhere in a scene

Put your cursor in a scene and right-click. The menu that opens is scoped to that scene, and it offers:

Ask Nisaba about a scene

  • ✦ Suggest the move — asks Nisaba — your AI writing partner — to read this one scene and tell you what it's reaching for and where it could go. Her thoughts open in the AI drawer as advice. Nothing in your script changes on its own.
  • ✦ Clarify the want — the same kind of look, focused tightly on one question: what does the character in this scene want? Useful when a scene feels busy but aimless.
  • ✦ Rewrite this scene ▸ — opens a small sub-menu of ways to have Nisaba draft a new pass of the scene: Make it playable, Find the button, or a Free rewrite where you say what you want. Her drafts arrive in a side-by-side picker so you can compare before keeping anything — they're never applied automatically.
  • ✦ Ask Nisaba about this scene — opens the Nisaba panel already loaded with this scene, so you can just start talking about it.

Shape the scene yourself

  • Change element to ▸ — turn the current line into any screenplay element type (Scene Heading, Action, Character, and so on). Changing a line into a scene heading warns you first, because it starts a new scene and renumbers the ones after it.
  • Insert ScriptNote — drop a note to yourself right in the script. Notes show up in [[brackets]] and never print in your PDF (see Screenplay formatting).
  • Reveal on board — jump straight to this scene's card on the board (the index-card view of every scene), so you can see where it sits in the bigger shape of your story.

Set a scene aside

  • Omit scene / Restore scene — mark a scene as omitted (set aside without deleting it) or bring it back. Omitting keeps the scene's place and history intact; it just steps it out of the active script.

Other

  • Report a bug… — tell us if something looks wrong, right from where it happened.
  • ↻ Do that again — {verb} — if you just ran one of Nisaba's verbs (like Suggest the move) on this scene, this re-offers the same one for a few minutes, so a second pass is a single click.

Costs credits: The ✦ Nisaba verbs — Suggest the move, Clarify the want, and Rewrite this scene — each ask Nisaba to do real work, so they draw on your credits. The amount varies with the scene and what you ask for; Suggest the move is small, a rewrite is larger. The exact charge settles once the work has run, and your remaining balance is shown as the credit count in the footer at the bottom of the screen. Changing an element, inserting a note, revealing on the board, and omitting a scene are free.

Note: The ✦ Nisaba verbs are switched off for an omitted scene — there's nothing to diagnose or rewrite until you restore it. Nabu also blocks a second click on a verb while the first one is still running, so you're never charged twice for the same request.

Right-click on one of Nisaba's suggestions

When Nisaba proposes an edit, it appears as gently underlined text right in your script. Right-clicking on that underline gives you a different, shorter menu — the one for deciding what to do with the suggestion:

  • ✓ Accept suggestion — keep the change.
  • ✦ Discuss with Nisaba — open the Nisaba panel to talk it over before you decide.
  • Dismiss suggestion — set it aside without changing your script.
  • Report a bug — if the suggestion looks broken.

Tip: You can also just click the underlined text (instead of right-clicking) to open the full review popup, where keys A, D, and Esc accept, dismiss, or close it. See Keyboard shortcuts.

Right-click on selected text

Highlight a passage first, then right-click, and the menu narrows to actions that fit a stretch of text:

  • ✦ Ask Nisaba about this passage — opens the Nisaba panel loaded with exactly the words you selected, so you can ask about a specific line or beat instead of the whole scene.
  • 🎵 Insert music cue — attach a piece of music to the passage. This appears only when your selection sits inside a single line of action or dialogue.
  • Remove music cue — appears in place of the above when the passage already has a music cue attached.
  • Report a bug

Note: Music-cue actions only show up when your highlight is fully inside one line of action or dialogue. If the menu doesn't offer a music cue, your selection is probably spanning more than one line — tighten it to a single passage.

The double-Enter element picker

This is Nabu's "insert an element on purpose" tool — and the closest thing to the slash menu other apps have, because Nabu has no slash menu.

Press Enter on an empty line, then Enter again (a second blank line in a row), and a small popup appears. Press the first letter of what you want:

Key Inserts
s Scene Heading
c Character
d Dialogue
p Parenthetical
t Transition
n Note (a non-printing annotation)

You can also use ↑ / ↓ to highlight a choice and Enter to pick it, or press Esc (or just keep typing) to dismiss it.

Tip: If you ever feel like you're hunting for a way to add an element, press Enter twice on a blank line — the picker is always there.

Character-name suggestions as you type a cue

You rarely need a menu to keep character names consistent — Nabu handles it while you type a character cue.

  • As you type a name on a character cue line, a small dropdown lists matching characters already in your script. Use ↑ / ↓ to choose one; press Enter to accept it and drop to the dialogue line, or Tab to accept it and add a parenthetical first. Esc dismisses the list.
  • Typing @ in an action or dialogue line turns that line into a character cue and opens the same suggestion list — a fast way to start a new line of dialogue.
  • A name Nabu doesn't recognize is simply added as a new character the first time you use it — no popup, no extra step.

Note: Names are matched and compared in capitals, and character cues capitalize themselves, so don't worry about getting the caps exactly right as you type.

Renaming a character

When you edit an existing character's name in a cue, a small popup asks what you meant:

  • Press 1 to change just this one cue.
  • Press 2 to rename that character everywhere in your script.
  • Press Esc (or click away) to dismiss it.

This rename popup is the way to rename a character across your whole script. The right-click menu does not offer a "Rename everywhere" verb right now — that option is switched off for the moment, so renaming a character throughout always goes through this popup when you edit one of their cues.

Tip: To rename a character everywhere, find any line where their name appears as a cue, edit the name there, and choose 2 when the popup asks. Every other instance updates to match.

Touchscreen and tablet

Everything above also works by touch. Instead of right-clicking, press and hold on the spot you want — a scene, a suggestion, or a selection — and the matching menu opens. Nabu moves your cursor to where you pressed first, so the actions apply to exactly the line under your finger.

Good to know

  • The menu changes with where you click. Right-clicking a plain scene gives you scene actions; right-clicking one of Nisaba's underlined suggestions gives you accept/dismiss; right-clicking a highlighted passage gives you the passage menu. If you don't see the action you expected, click somewhere more specific.
  • Nisaba never edits without your say-so. Even the rewrite verbs only ever propose — drafts and suggestions wait for you to accept them.
  • No slash menu, by design. To insert an element deliberately, use the double-Enter picker, the toolbar buttons, or the keyboard shortcuts — not a "/" command.