Drawing the floor plan: rooms, walls, gates

The editor tools, why office, break room and gate are more than drawing, keyboard shortcuts and how automatic saving works.

This feature is only included in the Premium plan. Compare plans

You draw the floor plan in the control room under "Edit". This works on a PC or tablet; by default, admin and planner may edit. On the left is the sidebar with your objects, in the middle the grid, on the right the "Properties" panel. On smaller screens you open the properties with the button of the same name.

The tools

Tool	How it works
"Select and move"	Click and drag objects. Dragging empty space pans the view.
"Draw room"	Drag a rectangle. If a room is selected, the rectangle is added to it, which gives you L shapes.
"Draw wall"	Drag from edge to edge. Walls run horizontally or vertically.
"Put a gate on a wall"	Click on a wall. A gate is 3 cells wide.
"Put a door on a wall"	Click on a wall. A door is 1 cell wide.
"Add label"	Click into a cell, then change the text on the right.
"Add pillar", "Add stairs"	Click into a cell.

A new room has the kind "Room" and no name yet. On the right, give it a "Room name" and choose the "Kind": "Hall", "Room", "Yard / outdoor area", "Office" or "Break room". Gantway applies text in the properties panel as soon as you leave the field or press Enter.

Office, break room and gate are more than drawing

The live view relies on these three things:

The room of kind "Office" holds the inbox with released orders that are not yet assigned to a station.
The "Break room" holds the people who are currently on a break.
The first gate holds the shipping zone and the zone for people who are clocked in but have no timer running.

Without an office, the inbox uses another room. Without a break room, people on break stand next to the inbox. Without a gate, the shipping zone and the "No timer" zone sit in a corner of the hall. So it is worth drawing all three. What else the scene shows is explained in Reading the live view.

Changing rooms and walls

Rooms and walls cannot be moved. Delete a wall and draw it again. Extend a room with "Add rectangle" (up to 20 rectangles per room) or shrink it with "Remove last rectangle". A wall's gates and doors are listed on the right under "Gates and doors" and can be removed one by one there.

Walls and rooms do not block objects. Gantway only checks whether two objects overlap.

View and grid size

Zoom with the mouse wheel, with two fingers or with "Zoom in", "Zoom out" and "Show whole hall".
Pan by dragging empty space, with the middle or right mouse button or while holding the space bar.
Set the grid size when nothing is selected: on the right under "Grid size in cells", width and depth 10 to 200 cells each, then "Apply". A new hall has 40 × 30 cells. It cannot be smaller than the existing content.

Keyboard shortcuts

The shortcuts only work in "Edit" and not while you type in a text field.

Key	Effect
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y	Redo
R	Rotate the selected object, pillar or stairs; while dragging from the sidebar, rotate the dragged object
Del or Backspace	Remove the selection
Arrow keys	Move an object, label or fixture by one cell
Esc	Clear the selection and return to the select tool; cancel while dragging

Undo goes back 100 steps, but only for the current session. You get older states back via Versions.

Saving is automatic

There is no save button. Gantway saves on its own shortly after each change. The right end of the toolbar shows the state:

Display	Meaning
"Saved 14:32"	Everything is saved.
"Changes will be saved shortly…" / "Saving…"	In progress.
"Not saved yet"	Nothing has been saved in this hall so far.
"Not saved — try again"	Saving failed. A click tries again.
"Not saved — hall was changed"	Someone else saved in the meantime.

If you try to leave the page while something is unsaved, the browser asks you first.

With more than 300 objects in a hall, the editor points out that it may slow down. How machines and workbenches get into the hall is described in Placing stations and workplaces.