Your View, Your Settings: Charts Now Remember Where You Left Off
Until now, a few settings in a chart were shared by everyone who used it: where the timeline was scrolled to, which groups were open or closed, and how the chart was set up for printing. Whoever touched them last decided how the chart looked for everybody else.
As of today that has changed. Tom's Planner now remembers these settings per browser, so every person gets their own view of the same chart. Scroll your chart all the way to the right, close the tab, and come back two days later: the chart opens all the way to the right again. Before, it opened at the spot where the last person working on the chart had left it.
What your browser remembers now
Three things used to live inside the chart. They are now kept in your browser:
- Scroll position. The chart opens where you left the timeline. A chart you haven't scrolled yet opens in a sensible place: on today while the project is running, at the start if it hasn't begun, and at the end if it's finished.
- Open and closed groups. Every group and subgroup keeps the state you gave it. How this works together with the owner's view is explained below.
- Print settings. Page format, page orientation, the number of pages (one page or several) and the date range you want to print are remembered. Your most recent page format, orientation and number-of-pages choice also become the starting point for your other charts. The date range is remembered per chart.
Printing shows why this matters. One person printing on Letter used to change the paper size for everybody, and every change in the print dialog counted as a change to the chart. That is no longer the case. Picking a different paper size doesn't touch the chart, so nothing is saved and nobody else's chart is refreshed.
The Print dialog. Its settings are now remembered per browser.
Groups: the owner sets the default
Groups work slightly differently, because a chart still needs a starting point. That starting point is the view of the owner of the chart.
Groups can be open or closed. Now everybody decides that for themselves.
If you are the owner: when you open or close a group in a chart you own, that state is saved in the chart itself. Your view counts as the default, and it is what everybody sees the first time they open the chart.
If you are anybody else: when a chart is shared with you (with or without edit rights), or you visit a published or embedded chart, you can open and close groups as you like. Your browser remembers your choices, so when you come back the chart looks the way you left it. It never changes the chart for anybody else.
This works per group. Once you have opened or closed a group yourself, your choice stays, even if the owner changes that group later. Groups you never touched keep following the owner. Say you close Phase 1 for yourself, and the owner later opens Phase 1 and closes Phase 3. You still see Phase 1 closed, because that was your choice, and Phase 3 closed, because you hadn't touched it.
One more thing for owners. If somebody else is editing the chart at that moment (see our post about the chart lock), what you open or close is kept in your browser. As soon as you can edit again, it is saved in the chart and becomes the new default.
Who is the owner of a chart?
Since the owner's view is the default for everybody, it helps to know who the owner is. Every chart has exactly one owner. That is the account the chart belongs to, usually the person who created it. Everybody else with access is a collaborator who can either edit or only view the chart. The owner is also the one who can share the chart, rename it, delete it and set things like the logo and the legend.
You can find the owner in a few seconds. Click open in the toolbar to go to My schedules. The Access column tells you what you are for each chart: is owner, can edit or can view. Select a chart and the panel next to the list shows who the owner is. For your own charts it says Me.
In My schedules the Access column shows your role per chart. Select a chart and the Owner field shows who owns it.
Ownership can move to somebody else, but there is still only one owner at a time. As the owner, click change next to your name, enter the email address of the other person's Tom's Planner account, and they receive an email to accept the transfer. From then on, the new owner's changes to groups set the default.
Good to know
- It's per browser. Your choices are remembered in the browser you use, not in your account. On another device or in another browser you start with the owner's view of the groups and the default scroll position. Clearing your browser data brings you back to that start as well.
- A shared browser means shared settings. If you and a colleague use the same browser on the same computer, you also share these settings.
- A scrolled chart stays put. The first time you open a chart after this change, it opens in the default place. Once you scroll it, it opens at that spot from then on, also weeks later, until you scroll somewhere else.
- Safari is stricter. Safari clears what a site has stored after seven days of Safari use without a visit to that site, so there you may be back at the default view more often.
- Embedded charts. For charts embedded on other websites, some browsers limit what they can remember, so your choices there may only last for the duration of your visit.
Roll out
This is the latest in a series of changes that make working together in one chart smoother. A few weeks ago we made the chart lock smarter, so only one person edits at a time. Now everybody can look at a chart the way they like it without getting in anybody else's way.
The change is live for everyone. Next time you return to a chart after a few days, notice where it opens. If it's right where you left it, that's this change at work. And if something doesn't behave the way you expect, let us know through the contact button in Tom's Planner.