The canvas

Moving around

Zoom goes from 15% to 1500%. The same controls sit at the bottom right, next to the minimap: drag inside the minimap to move, scroll on it to zoom.

Adding nodes

Double-click an empty spot to open the node picker. Type to search by name, move with the arrows, Enter adds the node where you clicked, Esc closes. Tab switches between the families (All, Files and media, Web and apps, Canvas, Desk, Pipeline) while you keep typing.

Other ways to add a node:

• the QuickDock at the bottom: click a chip for a node in the middle of the view, drag it to drop the node where you let go;
• the canvas menu (right-click on empty canvas) → Add node here;
• the command palette, Ctrl K;
• dragging files and folders from File Explorer.

What a dropped file becomes

Several files land side by side, up to four per row. Dropped on a Folder node, files are copied into that folder; hold Shift to move them instead. Dropped on a program that’s running in a node, they go to the program, as if you’d dropped them on its window.

The canvas menu

Right-click on empty canvas: Add node here, Paste, Fit view, Reset zoom, Rearrange nodes (puts the nodes of the canvas back in order) and Clear canvas, which asks first and can be undone.

Selecting and arranging

Drag on empty canvas to draw a selection box: a node only has to touch it. Shift + click adds a node to the selection or takes it out, Ctrl A selects every node on the canvas.

With two or more nodes selected, a bar appears above them:

• Group puts them in a frame;
• Arrange lays them out in rows, columns or a mosaic;
• Align lines up their edges or centers;
• Distribute spaces them evenly (from three nodes up);
• Delete.

Nodes snap to a 24-pixel grid, and guides appear when an edge lines up with another node.

Every node’s menu

Each node has a menu in its header (the ··· button, or right-click on the header). Besides its own commands it always has Duplicate, Copy, Cut, Move to project (to another workspace), Move to canvas 1 / 2, Bring forward, Send backward, collapse and expand, and Delete.

Drag an edge or a corner to resize a node.

Copy, paste, undo

Undo works on the canvas: nodes, positions, wires. Operations on files (deleting, renaming, moving) are undone from History, see Folders and files.

Groups

A group is a dashed frame. Move the frame and everything inside moves with it. Drag nodes in and out, rename it, pick one of eight colors. Groups don’t nest. Delete group removes only the frame: the nodes stay where they were.

Two canvases

Every workspace has two canvases. The two dots under the workspace pill switch between them, and so do Ctrl Alt ← and Ctrl Alt →. New nodes appear on the canvas you’re looking at; Move to canvas in a node’s menu sends it to the other one. Use the second canvas for what you want close at hand but out of the way.

Two screens

With two screens plugged in, Settings → Windows and screens shows Use two screens. Turn it on and the workspace’s two canvases go one per screen, each with its own zoom and view. To take a node to the other screen, drag it past the edge, or use Move to canvas from its menu. The screen map below it picks the home screen, where the dock, dialogs, search and notifications live.

With it off, Warpstead fills one screen and the map picks which one. Your other screens stay the Windows desktop.

If you unplug the second screen, canvas 2 stays saved and you reach it from the two dots under the pill. Plug the screen back in and it returns to its place. A program that was full screen on the unplugged screen goes back into its node.

Workspaces

A workspace is a project: its own canvases, nodes and programs. You’ll find them all together in All workspaces, which opens with Shift Esc or with the first button at the bottom of the left column; Mission Control and the command search also take you from one to another. The + in the column creates a new one, either Empty, Photographer (three linked nodes ready for a photo job: the folder you shoot into, a review, the delivery folder; you pick the folders afterwards) or one of your own templates.

Right-click a workspace’s card for Rename, Duplicate, Color, Set as default, Save as template…, Export…, Archive and Delete…. Delete empty workspaces stays in the column. Each workspace has a color: a dot in the pill, in Mission Control and on its card. Color picks another one out of eight, or goes back to the automatic one. Deleting a workspace doesn’t close the programs that were in it: they stay open in Windows.

The pill at the top center shows the name and the save state; click it to rename or delete the workspace.

All workspaces

When it starts, Warpstead shows all your workspaces on a grid, one card each, with a thumbnail drawn from its nodes, how many nodes it has and when you last changed it. The one that would have opened on its own is already selected (your default if you set one, otherwise the most recent): Enter opens it, and so does a double-click on any card. From inside a workspace you get back here with All workspaces in the left column or in the pill’s menu, or with Shift Esc; Esc, or Shift Esc again, takes you back where you were. If you’d rather go straight into your last workspace, change At startup in Settings › Windows and screens.

Cards sit on the grid’s cells and stay where you drop them. To keep a client’s or a job’s workspaces together, select them (drag a box on empty space, or Shift-click) and press Ctrl G. That makes a group, which grows and shrinks by itself as you drag workspaces in or out. Drag a group by its header to move it; its menu renames it, gives it a color, collapses it into a single cell, sorts its cards or ungroups it (the workspaces stay on the grid). The buttons at the top jump to each group and the map at the bottom right to any spot. The wheel zooms and Space plus drag pans, same as on the canvas.

Right-click a card for Open, Rename, Duplicate, Color, Move to a group, Save as template…, Export…, Archive and Delete. Deleting always asks first. If a workspace’s file got damaged, its card says so and offers Restore, which brings back the last backup copy and keeps the damaged file aside.

Archive is for workspaces you don’t need right now but want to keep. It asks first, then the workspace leaves the command search, Mission Control, the grid and the choice at startup; its file stays on disk. If you archive the one you’re in, it closes (its programs stay open in Windows) and you stay here to pick another; if it was your default, the default is cleared. The Archive switch at the top lists what you’ve archived, the latest first. Restore puts a workspace back in its group if the group is still there, otherwise in the cell it had if that’s free, otherwise in the first free cell. Delete… in the archive deletes it for good, after asking.

Export… writes one .warpstead file with the workspaces you picked, so you can move them to another computer or keep a copy. The file holds the workspaces, how the nodes are laid out, notes and lists, and the private copies some nodes keep, such as the original of a PDF. Your own files and folders stay where they are, as paths. Open windows, history, tracked time and the signatures you’ve put on PDF pages are never exported. A signed PDF travels as a link to its file, which already holds the signatures you saved; changes to it you haven’t saved stay on this PC. Import… (top right) reads a .warpstead file, and so does dropping one on the grid. Each workspace comes in as a new one, with a name that isn’t taken yet (“Clients (2)” if “Clients” is there), in the first free cell. Its card says Imported, and if some linked files or folders don’t exist on this computer a notice lists them: Choose… points one at its new place, Dismiss the notice hides it, Copy the list copies it. Choose… is there only until you first open the workspace.

Save as template… keeps a workspace as a starting point. The nodes with files or folders can come in empty, ready to pick (the default), or keep their paths. Open windows, history and tracked time never go in. Your templates show up under New workspace (the button at the top right) and in the + of the left column; to rename or delete one, use the ··· menu on it in the New workspace window of this screen. Creating a workspace, from a template or from scratch, opens it right away.

The command palette

Ctrl K opens a search box for commands: new workspace, add an app, add a node, open settings, keyboard shortcuts, report a problem, and the list of workspaces sorted by last change.

If Warpstead crashes

After a crash Warpstead starts again with your work, and says so (you can turn this off in Settings → Advanced). If it crashes three times in a row, it opens in recovery mode instead: a list of saved backups, where you can restore one or start empty.

If Warpstead stops responding, press Ctrl Alt Esc. It closes straight away, even when it’s frozen on top of every other window, and the windows of the programs in your nodes go back where they were. After about ten seconds without a response, Warpstead also asks whether to close it or wait. It never closes on its own.