Working with it
The bar, the foot and the ⋯ menu
The bar above the rows counts what waits, the strip under them narrows and moves the panel, and the ⋯ menu holds the eight things of every day.
The bar above the rows
The wide panel opens with a bar. Click it, or press ⌘K while the panel has the keyboard, and type: a few letters of a project find its row, words said in a conversation find it even after it closed, @name writes to a session, ? asks LampMaster, week sums up the last seven days.
When something waits, the bar says how much, by session: «1 needs you · 2 to read · 1 stopped». The rows already say which, in their own colours, so the bar only counts. A click on the count shows only those rows; another click shows them all again.
At the end of the bar sits LampMaster's star, dim while it has nothing to say, lit with a number when it has suggestions. A click opens its view beside the list. See LampMaster.
In 1.0 a queue of cards sat above the rows, and every card repeated a row underneath it. The one thing in it no row could do, answering a permission the panel holds, moved under the row itself: see what it asks for.
Tips, at the top
The first time something happens on the panel, two lines appear above the rows with Got it. Each tip once, one a day at most. See the first minute.
The strip under the rows
A hairline, then five controls. On the left, in the lamps' own column, the one that narrows the panel and the one that sends it to the menu bar or brings it back. On the right, under the grips, the Hub button beside the legend, and the ⋯ menu.
The strip is exactly as tall as a row, so it belongs to the same rhythm as everything above it rather than reading as something bolted underneath.
Compact mode
The left control narrows the panel to a strip of lamps, thirty-five points wide, and widens it again. Everything the column knows is still there; what goes is the text, and the bar with it. LampMaster keeps a line of its own there, having no bar to sit in.
It works because the states are told apart by shape and glow as well as by hue. See the six lamps.
The legend
What the lights mean: what the six colours and the two rings mean, with a live count of each.
The counting is the point. A legend that only explains is read once and never again; one that counts tells you, at a glance, that four sessions are working and one is blocked.
The ⋯ menu
The ⋯ under the rows, or a right-click anywhere on the panel's own margins. Eight entries:
| Entry | What it does |
|---|---|
| Open the Hub | every session in one window, its terminal at the centre: see the Hub |
| New session… | ⌘N: a new session in a folder, here or on another machine, opened in the Hub |
| What the lights mean… | the legend |
| What LampBoard can do… | the catalogue, every capability in a sentence |
| Show only what's waiting | rows that want nothing from you step aside, and a line says how many: and 7 more with nothing new, because a column with two rows must not suggest there are only two sessions |
| Mute alerts for an hour | while muted it reads Resume alerts, with the time it ends |
| I'm away | nothing interrupts until you are back; see being told |
| Settings… ⌘, | every other switch, in nine sections |
| Quit LampBoard |
While some projects are hidden, a ninth entry appears: Show 3 hidden projects.
Moving the panel
Drag it anywhere. It remembers where you put it.