Pangur docsPlan an argument
Plan is where you lay a draft out as an outline of sections and collect the works, passages and notes each section will be written from. This page describes the workspace and how to use it.
Plan is the workspace for the shape of a draft, before the writing or alongside it. You lay the argument out as an outline of sections and gather, under each section, the works and passages it will draw on. Plan and Write open the same draft, with Plan for arranging it and Write for the prose. If you are not sure what a section or a version is, read Drafts, sections and versions first.
Plan is in the web app and in Pangur for Mac, and the iPhone and iPad app has its own outline and planning screens. Assistants and the command line cannot read or change a draft's sections.
The Plan workspace
Plan has three panes. The drafts list is on the left, the outline of the draft you have open is in the middle, and a side pane on the right has four tabs, Library, Read, Research and Topics, from which you collect material onto a section. On a narrower window the side pane is hidden and Collect opens it over the outline instead. On a phone the panes open one at a time, first the drafts list and then the outline.
The page's address records the draft and the section you have chosen, and Write uses the same address, which is why moving between Plan and Write keeps your place.
Starting a draft
To start a draft, type a title into New draft… at the top of the drafts list and press Start or Enter. If you give no title the draft is called "Untitled draft". The new draft opens with one section, whose title is the draft's title.
Search drafts… finds a draft by its title. Every word you type must appear in the title, in any case.
Building the outline
The outline lists the draft's sections in order, nested as the argument is. Each row shows the section's title (or "Untitled section" until you give it one), its status, which is one of outline, draft, revised or done, and its word count, shown against the target when the section has one. Below those come the synopsis, under the prompt "What is this part of the argument for?", the Word target field, the works collected for the section, and the buttons Add note, Collect source and Write this section. The heading of the outline totals the draft's words against its planned target.
Adding, moving and removing sections
A section's Actions menu adds a section above, below or inside it, moves it, opens the library to collect works for it (Collect works here), and deletes it. Delete section removes the section and everything inside it after asking you to confirm. Because a draft keeps at least one section, the item is disabled on the last one.
You can also drag a section to a new place. Pangur's server refuses to move a section inside itself.
Working the outline from the keyboard
These keys apply when a section row has focus:
| Keys | What it does |
|---|---|
| Up, Down | Move focus to the previous or next section |
| Enter | Add a new section below, at the same level |
| Tab | Indent the section (make it part of the one above) |
| Shift-Tab | Outdent the section |
| Ctrl or Cmd with Up or Down | Move the section up or down |
| Ctrl or Cmd with Left or Right | Promote or demote the section |
When a section cannot be indented or outdented, Tab and Shift-Tab move focus out of the outline as they do elsewhere on the page. Write's binder uses the same arrow keys, but there Enter opens the section and Tab does not indent. The full list is in Keyboard shortcuts.
Collecting works onto a section
Collecting a work attaches a library item to a section as a source you mean to draw on there. Pangur calls this pinning the work. A pinned work is part of the plan rather than a citation, and it does not appear in the written text.
To collect works:
- Choose the section in the outline. Until you do, the Library tab asks you to choose one.
- In the Library tab, use Search your library… to find the works.
- Select one or more works and add them, or drag a work onto the section.
When several works are added together, Pangur adds all of them or none, so if one cannot be added nothing changes and the pane tells you. Every work must be in this project's library. Dragging a work that is already on the section highlights its existing row and adds nothing.
Page references, quotations and roles
Each pinned work can carry a page reference, a quotation, a role and a note. The work's row has Why is this here? for the note, Add a page reference, Remove this reference and Remove all.
You can give a page reference in any of four ways. You can type it, for example "p. 34". You can choose a page from Pages, which lists the pages of the work's file; if Pangur cannot list them, because there is no file, the file is not indexed yet or its pages could not be read, it says so and asks you to type the reference. You can choose one of your highlights from Highlights, in which case the highlight's text comes with it as the quotation. Or you can drag a passage from the Read tab, described below.
A page reference is shown as "p." followed by the printed page number when Pangur knows it, and as "sheet" followed by the page's position in the file when it knows only that. The same work can be pinned to a section more than once with different page references, while pinning it again with the same reference changes nothing.
The role says what the work is doing in the section: Cited, Context or Excluded. Excluded is for recording that you considered a work and set it aside.
Reading a work beside the outline
The Read tab opens a work's PDF, or another file Pangur can read, next to the outline. Select a passage and drag it onto a section, and Pangur pins the work to that section with the passage as the quotation and its page as the page reference. If the work has no file, the tab asks you to type the page reference instead.
Adding research and topics
The Research tab lists your research outputs, that is, your summaries, reviews, saved answers and notes. Filter by kind narrows the list. Add to the chosen section attaches the document to it as a planning note, and Open full opens the document on its own page.
The Topics tab shows the highlights you have gathered under a topic. Choose a topic, then use Add to section on a highlight to pin its work to the section, with the highlight's page as the page reference.
Planning notes
A planning note is a remark to yourself about one section. Choose Add note on the section and write it under the prompt "What are you telling yourself about this part?".
You can drop works onto a note as well as onto the section itself. Those works still count as the section's own, and deleting the note leaves them pinned to the section. Planning notes are not compiled into the draft's text or its versions.
From the plan to the writing
Write this section opens Write at the same draft and section. There the desk's Plan part shows the section's synopsis, notes and pinned works, and its Library part searches the pinned works first. Write itself is described in Write a draft.
Drafts, sections and versions
A draft is the writing you plan in Plan and write in Write. This page explains how its sections and versions fit together and how a draft differs from the other documents kept in Research.
Write a draft
Write is the editor for a draft, with the sections in a binder on one side and your plan and sources on a desk on the other. This page describes the editor, saving, the desk, figures and versions.