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MasterPlan

Visual planning ideaboard, by indie devs, for indie devs and creatives · By SolarLune

Tips and Tricks (AKA a short cheatsheet) + Discord Link Sticky Locked

A topic by SolarLune created Nov 08, 2019 Views: 451
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(15 edits)

Yo! 

Here's a quick cheatsheet on using MasterPlan. Note that there is a help option available directly in MasterPlan from the right-click menu - it will load up a plan that will walk you through the process of using the program, as well as give some guidance on shortcuts and menu options. Also, Here's a link to my Discord server if you want to connect with other MasterPlan users or myself, as the developer, and ask questions more quickly.

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General

  • SAVE OFTEN. MasterPlan is still in early access, so it won't be surprising if someone happens upon a crash. That said, there's been only one situation where the program crashes reliably, and that seems to be sometimes when recording the program using a GIF editor. This being such a unique edge case, I'm willing to let it slide as an incompatibility between the programs on my machine with my OS that's interfering with the rendering.
  • There is no menu bar in MasterPlan; you simply right click to open a menu that contains all relevant options for using the program. This maximizes visibility into the project.
  • Use Ctrl+C to copy Tasks and Ctrl+V to paste (or the entries in the right-click menu). The Delete key deletes Tasks (of course). The Enter key opens Tasks, while the Escape key closes a Task you're editing. You can also double-click on a Task to open it, and click on the [X] button at the top right when editing a Task to close it. The F key focuses the view on selected Tasks.
  • Ctrl+A selects all Tasks in the project. Left click on empty space to deselect all Tasks. Click and drag on empty space to select multiple Tasks. You can also hold Shift and click to select multiple Tasks, or hold Shift and Alt to deselect multiple Tasks.
  • The box at the bottom-right of the project view allows you to search for Tasks using text in their description or filepaths (if they are Image or Sound Tasks). You can also use Ctrl+F as a shortcut to find Tasks. You can use Ctrl+F and Ctrl+Shift+F to go forward and back through results when searching for Tasks.
  • The W, A, S, and D keys can be used to pan the view. Holding shift pans faster. You can also hold down the middle mouse button and drag the mouse to pan the view.
  • The 1 - 5 number keys zoom the camera to different levels.
  • F1 shows the FPS. F2 sets the window to 960x540, while F3 sets it to 1920x1080. You can stretch the window as you'd like to expand your view into your taskboard as you wish. The larger your screen, the more of your project you'll be able to see. F4 toggles fullscreen and F12 takes screenshots.
  • The Project Settings dialog (in the right-click menu) contains a variety of options to tweak how a plan is displayed, including themes, numbering schemes, and other visualization options.
  • The Backspace (Delete on Mac) key returns to the 0,0 point of the world (where the intersection of the two axes in the world are).

Tasks

  • Tasks are basically any element you add to your project and are your primary method of approach for customizing your project within MasterPlan. Tasks can be freely moved around and positioned as you like.
  • Hold Shift and use the arrow keys to swap Tasks around in the same column and indent or dedent Tasks. MasterPlan will automatically number indented Tasks and categorize them under their "parent" (unindented) Task. The Up and Down arrow keys select Tasks that are touching vertically.
  • The C key completes complete-able Tasks (which are Checkbox or Progression Tasks) from the Task overview.

Sounds

  • The C key plays Sound Tasks. Shift+C stops all playing Sound Tasks. Sound Tasks will play in sequence if placed next to each other in a column.

Images

  • When an Image Task is selected, two squares will appear at the top-left and bottom-right. The top-left square resets the size of the Image to its original size. The bottom-right one allows you to adjust the size of the image. Holding Alt while dragging the Image will lock it to its original aspect ratio.
  • Image and Sound Tasks can take file paths or URLs to Image and Sound files; if a URL is given, MasterPlan will automatically download the resource to a temporary directory to display and use in your taskboard. The file should be deleted when MasterPlan closes.
  • You can use the "Paste Content" entry in the right-click menu or Ctrl+Shift+V to have MasterPlan attempt to create and configure a Task to "fit"  data from your OS clipboard. Essentially, this means that you can copy the image address of something on Twitter, and then use Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the image onto your board without having to download the image first, or even configure a Task. It also works for Sounds. Note that due to URLs not always being accurate to the file contents, this can only try to identify the payload at the URL, for now.

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That's it for now; I'll update this as I add and refine features.