Worklight Manual

How to use the Worklight tools, from a first look to opening night. Each app also has a short Help panel, behind the ? in its black band, for when you're in the middle of something.

The apps

• Stage ManagerLine notes, reports, sign-in, production meetings, props and shifts, and contacts.
• WriterStage plays, musicals and screenplays, formatted as you type.
• BreakdownWho's onstage, French scene by French scene: the chart and scene matrix, doubling, quick changes and props.
• Rehearsal PlannerWho can be called when, the calendar, the daily call, schedules and coverage.
• Prompt BookYour photocopied script set in clean pages with a margin for cues, ready to print.

What every app shares

1. Chrome or Edge
2. Your show's folder
3. Saving and backups
4. Sharing with your team
5. Moving between apps
6. The sample show
7. Dark
8. Installing an app
9. New versions
10. Ideas, bugs and questions

Chrome or Edge

Worklight runs in Chrome or Edge, on a Mac, Windows or Linux computer, or an Android device. They let an app open and save files directly on your computer or device, so there's nothing to upload or download. Safari and Firefox aren't supported.

On an iPad or iPhone, the apps can't open show folders or scripts. Every browser there, Chrome included, is built on Safari, which doesn't allow it. An iPad is still handy alongside: PDFs your team saves to your shared folder (daily calls, reports, line notes, the contact sheet) open fine there, and Rehearsal Planner's calendar file can go in its Calendar.

Your show's folder

• Breakdown, Rehearsal Planner and Stage Manager each work on a show folder: an ordinary folder on your computer that holds everything for one show. Choose New show to start one, Open a show folder to open one, or Reopen for the last show you had open.
• Each app keeps its own file in the folder, such as stage-manager.json. The cast, staff and the show's details are in production.json, which the show-folder apps share through their Production panel, so you type them once.
• Writer works on a script file (.fountain) rather than a folder. Keep the script in the show's folder and the other apps can read it.
• Everything is a plain file you own. Nothing goes to any server, and there are no accounts.

Saving and backups

• Choose Save, or press Ctrl+S (⌘S on a Mac). Undo is Ctrl+Z.
• Until you save, your work is backed up in the browser, so it isn't lost if Chrome closes unexpectedly.
• If a file changed on disk while you had it open, perhaps saved by someone else, the app warns you before saving over it.

Sharing with your team

• To share a show, keep its folder in a cloud service you already use, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Box or iCloud Drive, synced to your computer. Your service does the syncing; Worklight only sees a folder.
• One person edits each file at a time. The prompt book goes further and names its keepers, usually the stage manager: others can open the folder to read and print it.
• PDFs the apps make, such as line notes and reports, are saved in folders inside the show's folder, so the whole team can find them.

Moving between apps

• The app's name in its black band is a menu of the other apps and Worklight home.
• Each app lives in its own tab, and opens on the show you're working on, the sample included. If it's already open on another show, it switches to yours, asking first if there's anything to save. If Chrome asks permission for the show's folder, choose Open it.
• The day follows you too, between Rehearsal Planner and Stage Manager: open a rehearsal in one, choose the other, and it opens on the same day.
• To go back to an app's start screen, where you can try the sample show or open another, click the show's name in the black band and choose Close this show.
• The Worklight emblem, the lamp, takes you to Worklight's home page.

The sample show

Just looking? Choose Try a sample show on any app's start screen to open The Last Lamp, an invented musical kept inside Chrome rather than on your computer. Change anything you like; Start it over brings it back as it began. From a show you have open, Close this show, under the show's name, goes back to the start screen and the sample. In Writer, choose Try the sample script at the top of Help.

Dark

The palette button, beside the ?, switches between Paper & Ink and Dark, a dim backstage look for the booth, the wings or working at night. One choice covers Breakdown, Rehearsal Planner, Prompt Book and Stage Manager. Writer has its own choice, with a third look, Simple. Themes change only the screen; everything prints black on white.

Installing an app

Any app can have its own window and an icon in your dock or taskbar. With the app open in Chrome, click the install icon at the right of the address bar, or look for Install in Chrome's menu. It's the same app, kept up to date from the website. If an installed app is already open in another window, the app menu tells you to switch to it from the dock or taskbar.

New versions

When a new version is published while an app is open, a message says it's ready, such as New version of Stage Manager ready. Choose Reload once you've saved, or Later to carry on.

Ideas, bugs and questions

Worklight is made by one person, Michael Abbott, and grows out of what people ask for. If something isn't working, write to michael@worklight.me and say which app, what you did and what happened instead. A screenshot helps. Ideas for new features, and paperwork you'd like Worklight to take off your hands, are just as welcome.