Documentation
Everything below works without an account. The reference page defines the vocabulary; this page says what to click.
Getting started
The editor opens on a start screen with three choices: a small video setup, a big sound setup, or a blank canvas. The setup you pick becomes your project, kept in this browser. The library is on the left: search a model, drag it onto the canvas, and it arrives with its sockets. Pull a cable from one socket to another. A link the engine refuses shows up with its reason and what to do; nothing is refused silently.
- Open the editor and pick a start, or close the screen to keep the blank canvas.
- Search the library for a model and drag it onto the canvas; a device missing from the library is created from the palette, sockets included.
- Drag from a socket to another socket to pull a cable. Select the cable to set its length or its content.
- Read the documents panel on the right: the cable list, the patch sheet, the equipment list and the checks follow every change.
The documents panel
The cable list, the patch sheet, the equipment list and the checks recompute while you draw. Select a cable to pin its label so that it survives a revision, to give it a content such as “Mix 3, drummer wedge”, or to repeat it as a bundle onto the next free sockets of both devices. A device with a quantity shows “× N” and counts N units in the equipment list.
Zones and the sheet
The Zones tab names the places, Stage, FOH, truss, and each device takes one; frames show them on the canvas. The project properties carry what the title block prints: name, revision, client, venue, author, date. The sheet settings pick the paper size and its orientation, and the engine says whether the drawing fits.
Import
Two ways in. An equipment list as CSV, from the empty canvas or the Import menu: columns are found by heading, and models known to the library arrive with their sockets. A project file, .technipatch, reopens a diagram exactly as it was saved.
Export
The Export menu writes the sheet as PDF from A5 to A0, with the cable list pages, as SVG, or as PNG; one CSV per document; a rack elevation when devices carry a height in U; and the project file. Formats are detailed on the import and export page.
Account
No account is needed to draw, check, export or share. A free account, opened by verifying an email address with a six-digit code, keeps one project on the server with ten revisions, to find it again from another machine. Pro keeps two hundred projects and puts a logo in the title block. Each save stacks a revision; none replaces another.
The Settings menu
What rewrites the whole plan lives in the Settings menu and has no bare key: “Arrange diagram” lays the blocks out again, “Clear hand-drawn cable paths” gives every cable back to the router. The theme and the language are there too.
Keyboard shortcuts
The moves that come up a hundred times per plan. “Ctrl / ⌘” means whichever command key your system uses.
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Open the command palette | Ctrl / ⌘ + K |
| Undo | Ctrl / ⌘ + Z |
| Redo | Ctrl / ⌘ + Shift + Z |
| Duplicate the selection | Ctrl / ⌘ + D |
| Select all | Ctrl / ⌘ + A |
| Delete the selection | Delete or Backspace |
| Add a note | N |
| Collapse or expand the selected device | M |
| Selection tool (the arrow) | V |
| Pan tool (move the view) | H |
| Frame the whole diagram | 0 |
| Close, or cancel the move in progress | Esc |
| Open the context menu from the keyboard | Menu key, or Shift + F10 |
Further reading
The reference page defines every word used here, and the guides go deeper on one subject each.
The canvas is already open
Drop five devices, pull cables between their ports: the cable list, the patch sheet and the equipment list fill themselves in while you draw. No account, no card.