Tools¶

Everything that lives inside an initiative is a tool. There are nine kinds. Projects and files are switched on to begin with; the rest sit quietly, entirely unbothered by whether you ever open them.

Add one when you actually need it¶

Most groups run on projects and files for a good long while, and there is nothing wrong with that. The others each have a fairly specific moment where you'll suddenly want them:

• A calendar, when scheduling has visibly outgrown the group chat.
• A queue, the second time somebody asks whose turn it is.
• Counters, when a number needs to be the same number for everyone in the room.
• A dashboard, when somebody who isn't doing the work starts asking how the work is going.
• A board, the third time something important was announced in a chat and missed by four people.
• A gallery, when the mockups are in a folder called final, next to a folder called final2.
• A wiki, when every answer to "how does the float work?" is "ask Margaret".

Switching one on is not a commitment or a lifestyle change. Switching it off later doesn't delete anything.

That goes for projects and files too. They're the two an initiative starts with, because most groups want them — but they're switches like the rest, in the Tools card under Initiative settings → Details. Making an initiative asks which ones it wants, too. A book club that keeps notes and a reading schedule can turn Projects off rather than look at an empty tab forever; a game night that is a calendar and a pile of counters can turn both off. Nothing is deleted, and turning one back on brings it all back.

Who can use what¶

Tools appear in the sidebar under an initiative once your role allows them. A role decides which kinds of tool you can view and create; sharing then decides which specific ones you can reach.

So "I can't see Queues at all" is a role question, for an initiative manager. And "I can see Queues but not that queue" is a sharing question, for whoever owns it. Two different people, two different conversations, and it's worth knowing which one you're having.

What they all have in common¶

Every tool, without exception:

• Shares the same way — Viewer, Editor, Owner, or everyone in the initiative.
• Takes tags, so a tag pulls together everything on one subject regardless of what kind of thing it is. See Tags.
• Has a comment thread, switchable off per item under Settings → Details.
• Can be pointed at with # from any comment or text document, and lists what points back in its Connections.
• Exports from Settings → Advanced, for whoever could also delete it.
• Can be duplicated, with everything inside it.
• Goes to the Trash when deleted, not to oblivion.
• Turns up in My Tools, gathered with everything else of its kind from every community you're in.

Learn it once and it's true of the next one. That's the entire point of doing it this way — including for the tools that don't exist yet, since the list has grown before and will again.

The top of every tool page¶

Open a project, a queue, a dashboard or any other tool and the top of the page is laid out the same way:

• A band in the initiative's colour, so you always know which initiative you're standing in. It holds the breadcrumb back out, and Settings across from it if you're allowed to change things.
• The name and description. Click the name to rename it. A file is the one exception: its title is the field at the top of the file.
• A strip underneath, with Status, Tags and Properties, all changeable right there, beside whatever only that tool has — a project's progress and dates, a queue's turn controls.

Status is Active or Archived. Archiving marks a thing finished: it, and everything inside it, turns read-only until you take it back out. Projects and files can also be a Template, and that's where you make one.

A wiki is laid out differently, because a wiki is for reading. See Wikis.

Lists¶

Each tool has a tab on the initiative's page listing everything of that kind you can reach. Projects, files, queues, counters, dashboards, galleries and wikis can each be shown three ways, and each remembers the one you picked:

Some cards show what's inside without opening anything: a dashboard's card is a small copy of the dashboard, a counter group's shows its first counters, a queue's shows whose turn it is and who's next, and a gallery's shows its cover.

Along the top of a list:

• Show switches between Active and Archived — and, for projects and files, Templates — each with how many are in it.
• Filters narrows the list by name, by tag, and by the initiative's own properties.
• More actions holds the rest: Select items, for doing something to several at once: tag them, duplicate them, delete them, or change who can see or edit them (click the first, hold Shift, click the last — see Sharing & access); Import from file, for bringing back something exported; and, where the marketplace has ready-made ones, Browse the marketplace.

There's one button for making a new one. On a phone it lives at the bottom of the screen.

Connections¶

Every tool has a Connections section, and so do the things inside one — a task, an event, a picture, a wiki page. It lists what this links to and what links to it, and it's where you say how two things relate: this task is blocked by that one, this file is attached to that project. See Mentions & links.

Duplicating¶

Every tool but a notice can be copied from Settings → Advanced → Duplicate, into this initiative or any other where you can make one. The copy brings everything inside it, with their tags and links — a calendar its events and repeats, a wiki its published pages — and keeps its sharing while it stays in the same initiative. Anyone who can read a template can copy it.

A notice is posted once. The next one is a new notice.

The things inside a tool copy on their own, too: a task, a counter, a queue item, an event, a wiki page. The copy lands in the same place as the original, with "(Copy)" on its name, and brings its tags, links and properties. Each tool's own page says where its Duplicate lives.

Related¶

• Initiatives — tools live inside an initiative.
• Plug-ins & the marketplace — ready-made dashboards and plug-ins.
• Your space — every tool of every kind that's reached you, across every community.