Navigation

Ordinary Animator is organised around entities -- projects, episodes, scenes, shots, characters, locations, and props. Three ideas do most of the work:

• Lists -- every entity of a type (all your characters, all your shots).
• Views -- the different pages of a single entity (Media, Properties, Timeline, ...).
• Recent -- the app remembers where you've been, so you can jump back without searching.

The sidebar ties them together for whole-entity-type navigation, and the page header handles moving between the entities in a sequence.

The sidebar

The primary navigation is a persistent sidebar down the left edge of the app. It is always there -- you don't open it from a menu.

• It can be expanded (icons with labels) or collapsed (icons only). Use the chevron at the bottom to toggle; your choice is remembered between sessions.
• Its contents appear once you open a project. With no project open, the sidebar shows a single Projects entry that takes you to your project list.

The anchor: current project and episode

The top of the sidebar is an anchor showing where you are:

• The current project, and -- once you open one -- the current episode beneath it.
• Click either name to jump to that entity's home page.
• Each has an X to close it. Closing the episode drops you back to the project; closing the project returns you to your project list. The anchor stays visible even while you work on a character, location, or prop, so you always know the project and episode in context.

Sections

Beneath the anchor, once a project is open, are the entity-type sections: Characters, Locations, Props, and Episodes. Each is a direct link -- click it to open that type's full list, where you can browse, create, star, and search. There is no hover menu; one click takes you to the list.

Scenes and shots are not sidebar sections. You reach them through the episode's Shot List, and step between them from the page header (see Moving between scenes and shots below).

Recent

The bottom of the sidebar keeps a unified Recent history -- the entities you last opened, across every type, newest first. Click one to jump straight back to the exact view you were on. The list fits the space available; when there are more than fit, the last row becomes a See N more link that opens the rest in a popup.

Views

Within an open entity, you switch between its views from its page header.

The current views for each entity type (opening an entity lands on the first view in its list -- for a project that is the Episodes list, for an episode its Properties):

Entity	Views
Project	Episodes, Characters, Locations, Props, Arcs, Schedule, Properties, Team, AI Models, Recipes, Agents, Actions
Episode	Properties, Outline, Script, Analysis, Dialogue, Shot List, Timeline, Guide
Scene	Dialogue, Media, Organize, Properties, Timeline
Shot	Media, Organize, Properties, Context, Timeline
Character	Media, Organize, Properties, Voice, Profile
Location	Media, Organize, Properties, Profile
Prop	Media, Organize, Properties, Profile

The episode's Script view is where you write the screenplay, and the Guide view is where you work through its production plan (see Guide).

Moving between scenes and shots

Scene and shot pages carry their navigation in the page header rather than the sidebar:

• The name at the left of the header is a link back to the Shot List -- click it to see every scene and shot in the episode and pick a different one. The Shot List highlights and scrolls to wherever you came from.
• A stepper at the far right -- previous, up, next -- walks the episode's table of contents in order: a scene, then each of its shots, then the next scene, and so on. The up arrow returns you to the Shot List; the previous and next arrows step one entry at a time. Because the stepper is pinned to the right, it never shifts as names change length, so you can click through a run of shots quickly.

For characters, locations, and props, the header name is paired with a Looks picker for switching between that entity's variants (see the relevant reference page).

The guide bar

A slim highlighted strip sits directly under the page header on nearly every page. It always suggests your next recommended step, wherever you are:

• Before you have any projects, it invites you to create your first one; with projects but none open, it offers to open one; inside a project with no episodes yet, it points you at creating an episode.
• Once an episode exists, it follows the episode's production plan: when the next step happens on the page you're looking at, it tells you what to do right here (often with a link that jumps to the exact field); when the next step lives elsewhere, it shows a Next button that takes you there.
• The Explain button asks the assistant to explain the current step, and the checklist icon at the right opens the episode's Guide at that step, where you can see overall progress.

If you are ever unsure what to do next, follow the guide bar.

First-time hints

The first time you encounter a few key parts of the app -- creating your first project or episode, the sidebar anchor, the Recent list, the view switcher, and the guide bar itself -- a one-time spotlight dims the page around that element and explains it briefly. Click Got it (or anywhere) to dismiss. Each hint appears only once per account; they are independent pointers, not a tour you can fall behind on.

The account menu

Your avatar sits at the bottom of the sidebar. Click it for the account menu -- settings, configuration, and account actions (What's New, My Account, Settings, Change Log, Comfy Queue, the light/dark theme toggle, and Sign out). See Account Menu for the full list.