Departments: QPlot help

Switching departments on and off

Settings, Departments has four switches: Audio, LX, Director and DSM. Audio starts on.
Switch on the ones you work. Each puts a button in the tool bar.
The bar stays one size and the buttons share it.
Switch a department off and its layer goes off with it. Its cues leave the page, the lists and the Layers menu. Nothing is deleted.
DSM is different. With DSM on, every department's cues show, because a DSM calls them all.
Show mode's strip names the cues of the departments switched on.

A desk cue has two more boxes: Mics on and Mics off. Type the mics that come up and go out with the cue.
They show in the Cues list and the cue list export. QPlot does not fill them in.

The mic plot is in Settings, under Mic plot.
Tap Scan script. QPlot looks for speakers: a short name in capitals, on its own line or before a colon.
A name with three or more lines goes into Characters. The number beside it is its line count.
Names with one or two lines wait under Suggested, with any stray capitals. Tap Add on any that are characters.
Type each character's mic in its Mics box. Two characters sharing a number is a mic swap.
For two spellings of one name, tap Select, tick both and tap Merge. The first in the list keeps its name.
For a line spoken by several, swipe its row right, tap Members and tick who is in it. Or tap Select, tick the members and tap Group for a new row. A group shows its members' mics.
Swipe a character left to delete it. The plus adds an empty row.
Save keeps the plot. The whole of it undoes in one step.
Scan again lists anything new under Suggested. A character deleted on purpose stays out of Characters.

Switch on Mic numbers in Settings. Each speaker's name gets its mic number in a green circle, after the name.
A line shared by several shows each one's number. More than four become one label.
To correct the page, open Audio and pick Mics. Every name the scan found shows its number, or a grey question mark for no mic.
Tap a name or its number. Pick a different character, change that character's mics, or make a new character.
The small print under the box says how far the change reaches: every line with that name, or this line only.
Remove from this line takes the number off one line. QPlot asks first.
Circle a name the scan missed. If the plot has that name, the number goes on at once.
If the plot does not have it, the box opens. Pick the character or make a new one, and type the mic.
QPlot then finds that character's other lines and numbers them too.
On a scanned script the first search takes a while. "Finding" and the name show at the top, and the page stays usable.
Corrections made by hand survive Scan again.

LX cues plot like every other cue. The LX group adds Spot, for followspot pickups.
Pick Spot and tap the page with the Pencil at the pickup. The box opens straight away.
Spot is the spot's number. Pickup is who it picks up: type a name, or choose a character from the mic plot.
Colour is the frame. Size is the iris. Then Level and a note.
The stamp reads FS, the spot number and the pickup.
A spot cue has no cue number of its own. It belongs to the LX cue before it.
Export, Followspot sheet is a spreadsheet with one row per pickup: LX cue, spot, pickup, colour, size, level, page and note.

With Director on, the tool bar has a Director group: Note for, Sort and Send notes.
Pick Note for and tap the page with the Pencil where the note applies.
Write the note. The yellow button says who it is for. Tap it and tick every department that needs it.
For Cast, pick the character. That makes it a line note for one actor.
On the page, the note leads with who it is for. The next one starts on the same department.
A note made with the plain Note tool, or written in Show mode, is for nobody yet. That is what Sort is for.

Sort shows how many notes are waiting. Tap it and QPlot takes you to each one in script order.
Tap every department the note is for, then Next. Mine keeps it for yourself. Skip leaves it for later.
For Cast you can name the character. Back goes to the last note. Done leaves at any point, and nothing picked is lost.
Send notes lists the departments with notes waiting, and how many. Put your name in From.
Tap a department under Send. One file goes to the share sheet. It puts the notes on the right pages in their QPlot.

Switch on DSM and a cue column appears beside the script.
It lists every cue on the page, from every department, level with its line and joined to it. A follow-on shows both ends, and a cue's note follows its number.
Cue column, in Settings, puts it left or right.
It needs room. On an 11-inch iPad with the side panel open it steps aside. Zoom the page and it goes blank.
The DSM group has two tools: Standby and Cue.
Pick Standby and tap the page with the Pencil where the standby is called.
The standby lists the cues after it, by department, up to the next standby. There is nothing to type.
It looks no further than the next page, and leaves out spot cues and the last cue of a follow-on.
Cue is for a department with no button: flys, AV, automation. Pick it and tap the page with the Pencil.
It starts as FLY. Open it and type another prefix.
The next one placed takes that prefix. Each prefix has its own numbers.
In Show mode the column stays, and the strip names every department's cues.