Location Hierarchy

Tip: Penpoint remembers which locations you had expanded or collapsed. When you close and reopen Penpoint, the location list will look exactly the way you left it.

Unlike characters, which appear in a simple list, your locations are organized in a nested list where locations can contain other locations. This mirrors how places work in real life: a continent contains countries, countries contain cities, cities contain districts, and so on.

To nest one location inside another, drag it onto the location you want to use as a container, or click the + button on any location to create a new location inside it.

Understanding the Location Tree

Middle-earth

Eriador

The Shire

Bag End

The Party Tree

Gondor

Figure 1 - Nested locations with expand/collapse controls

The location list shows which locations are inside which other locations. Tree lines connect inner locations to the ones that contain them, making the structure easy to understand at a glance.

Tip: Most stories use 4-5 levels of nesting (continent, country, city, district, building, for example). Penpoint supports up to 25 levels deep if you need them.

Showing and Hiding Locations

Click the small arrow next to any location to show or hide the locations inside it:

A downward-pointing arrow - The location is expanded, showing everything inside it
A right-pointing arrow - The location is collapsed, hiding what is inside
No arrow - The location has nothing inside it

Use the Expand All / Collapse All button at the top of the location list to quickly show or hide everything at once.

Finding Nested Locations

When you select a deeply nested location, Penpoint automatically expands all the locations above it to show the full path. This ensures you can always see where a location sits in the list.

Location Path

Bag End

Figure 2 - Location path shows where the current location sits in the list

At the top of the detail area on the right side of the screen, Penpoint shows a location path from the outermost location down to the one you have selected.

Click any location in the path to jump directly to it. This is the fastest way to navigate up through several levels.

When Paths Are Too Long

For deeply nested locations (more than 5 levels), the path shows the first 2 locations, then "...", then the last 2 locations. This keeps the path readable while still showing the most important context.