The PlanMinder Manual - 13 Presentation View
This is one chapter from the manual. Access the full manual here.
Presentation View
Overview
The Presentation View is designed to help you communicate about project plans, the state of projects and the project portfolio during meetings.
Presentation View has no editing tools and fewer icons overall to focus on the important information. The screen is split so that a project plan or schedule can be viewed side by side with a report or the priority overview. You can quickly switch between showing a plan in Kairos view and showing it as a Gantt chart in Chronos view.
Presentation View opens in a separate window when you click the “Open presentation mode window” - button available on the Priority page and the Reports / Project Reports tab.
There are three main views in the Presentation View, with icons on the left side:
On the right side see the Project Plan view. Each view is described in more detail in the following chapters. Keyboard shortcuts are listed in Navigation and Keyboard Shortcuts
Settings and Controls
On the top right there are icons for general control of the Presentation View window.
Settings
Clicking on the settings icon (shortcut key P) opens up a panel where you can select color scheme and background image.
Backgrounds with a play symbol are animated backgrounds.
Backgrounds with a square symbol are static line art.
The final background option lets you load a custom background image.
If a color scheme or background is grayed out, it is not compatible in combination with the currently selected backround or color scheme.
Text Size
The - A + icons allow you adjust the text size in the Presentation View. Clicking the plus or minus icons changes the size. Clicking the A icon resets the size to default.
When hovering over the A icon you can use the mouse scroll wheel to quickly adjust the text size. Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcuts CTRL + and CTRL - to change the size.
Play / Pause
If you are using an animated background, you can pause or start the animation by clicking on the second to last icon. The animated backgrounds are visually appealing but might not work well when shared via online meeting apps with limited bandwidth and heavy compression. In such case, pausing the animation may be advisable.
Full screen toggle
The final icon toggles full-screen mode. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts F5 or F11. The Esc key will exit full screen mode.
Panel Split Adjustments
The Presentation View is divided into a left and right panel. You can adjust the size of the panels when the icon changes to a double arrow. This may be necessary after adjusting the text size. The left panel for Priority List and Team Availability contains some extra information that remains hidden unless you make the left panel wider.
Milestone Priority List
The Milestone Priority List simply lists all prio-ponts, just as in the main window tab, with the milestones on a timeline in the right panel.
You cannot change priorities in this view. Instead clicking on a milestone will open the project plan in the right panel. Click again to deselect the project and return to the timeline.
If you make the left panel wider you will reveal additional columns with information.
- Scheduled for milestone: Amount of work scheduled to reach this milestone
- Exp Left Project: Total work expected to complete the project. This includes not scheduled work.
- Work Done: Work reported for this project so far.
Right-clicking a milestone row opens the Description Overlay for that milestone.
Project Report List
The Project Reports List lists your latest project reports in priority order.
Clicking the Report icon for a report in the list will open that report in the left panel, and the project plan in the right panel. When open, click the < back button to go back to the list.
Clicking the Eye icon hides the report, removing it from the list. You can choose to show hidden reports and unhide reports in the Filter Reports panel.
You can prepare this list before the meeting starts, and you can hide reports as they are dealt with during the meeting. (Hiding a report does not affect other users and the status is not stored in the database.)
Select report elements to preview
Just as in the main window project reports tab you can select which report elements to preview in the list. Click the icon to open the selection panel and choose what elements to preview.
By default the Info element is selected. For information about the different project elements, see Project report elements.
Filter reports
Clicking the Filter Reports icon lets you select what reports to show in the list.
You can filter out old reports, show or unhide hidden reports and select what project statuses are allowed in the list. By default only reports for active projects are shown, but you may want to show the report for a recently completed project.
Team Availability Overview
This view shows team availability in the right panel the same way as in the Priolist / Availability tab. Clicking on a project will open the project plan in the right panel. This overview is thus useful also when you want to show plans that are not scheduled and do not have project reports.
Project portfolio list
The left panel lists projects under their category in alphabetical order.
The filter panel lets you select what projects based on status will be listed. By default only active projects are listed.
Each project row has a bar in the background showing the relative amount of work left to do for each project. The fading gradient part of the bar indicates uncertainty. The manager column shows who is assigned as project manager.
Widening the panel reveals two more columns with information:
- Work Left (p70): Amount of estimated work left to do in the project, at the p70 reasonable sure probability level.
- Work Done (reported): The amount of work reported for this project.
Holding the mouse over a project row (without clicking) highlights the developers and when they are scheduled in the right panel.
Team Availability
The Team Availability plot in the right panel shows when team members are scheduled to work on projects in solid color at the center of each line in the timeline. The fuzzier part of the plot illustrates the probability that they will have scheduled work in any project on a specific date. Holding the mouse over a scheduled date for a team member shows what project is scheduled for that date, and highlights the full schedule for that project, and all developers involved.
If you scroll up slightly from the initial position, so that there is space for an empty row above the top team member, the last milestone for the project will be shown there when a project is highlighted.
Project plan view
The project plan view in the right panel shows the selected project either in Kairos view, or Chronos view scheduled on a timeline as a Gantt chart. You select which using the tabs on the top.
In Kairos view there is a view mode and color mode selector on the right just as in the main window.
The (i) button on the bottom right opens up a legend, showing what the colors mean. When hovering the mouse over an item in the legend, all associated items will highlight. If there are no activity groups in the project, it is not available in the Color by Group mode.
Switching to or from Chronos view animates how activities and other items move from their Kairos plan position to their scheduled positions on the timeline.
Hovering the mouse over a line in Chronos view will highlight the row, and for activities and external activities show the box and whiskers plot for when it is predicted to be completed.
Right clicking on an item in Kairos mode, on the timeline or in the legend will open the Description Overlay.
Navigation and keyboard shortcuts
Navigation with the mouse works the same way as in the main window: Press left mouse button and drag to pan, use the mouse wheel to zoom.
Arrow keys and W A S D can be used to pan. Hold CTRL to pan in bigger steps. Shift arrow up / down (or W or S) and PG UP / PG DN can be used to scroll left panel lists.
+ and - keys can be used to zoom.
The Home key resets pan and zoom to “Zoom All” where all of the project or schedule fits in the screen.
The Z key can be used to switch between Kairos and Chronos view. CTRL 4 or just 4 switches to Kairos, CTRL 5 or just 5 switches to Chronos.
The C key can be used to toggle between color modes.
The E and Q keys can be used to cycle through Kairos view modes.
The I key toggles the legend on and off.
The P key opens the settings panel.
CTRL + and - changes text size.
The Esc key exits selected project and exit full-screen mode
Tips, Tricks and trouble shooting
Closing the Presentation View image will not make it forget its settings. It will open again where it last was, until the application is restarted. Only settings made in the settings menu will be saved between sessions. They are saved for your local computer user, not in the database.
The animated backgrounds require a graphics card to work. They will be disabled if it is detected that no graphics card is available. If rendering the background image is too slow, the application will change to a non-animated background. Without a graphics card rendering a single frame may take tens of seconds, while the window is frozen. Slow rendering can be detected also when a computer enters a low power or sleep mode, even if it normally works.
The animated backgrounds can be resource intensive. By default The PlanMinder uses OpenGL as graphics backend. It is possible to make it use Vulkan instead by adding the switch -yesvulkan to the command line (by editing the shortcut). Vulkan is much more efficient, but unfortunately currently not completely stable with this application for all graphic drivers. Another option is to add the -yesraster command line option. It will disable animated backgrounds and prefer CPU rendering, as in release 28 and erlier. See the the V2R29B277 release notes for more details.
On computers with too weak graphics cards the frame rate of the background and all animations will visibly drop. In that case switch to a non animated background. The MacBook Air M1 in full screen mode is one example. Pausing the animation will not help.
