Hello and welcome to the articy:draft X Basics tutorial series. In this lesson we take a look at differences in UI between Single and Multi user and the impact on your day to day work in articy:draft.
UI differences
Top half of the screen is multi-user version, on the bottom single-user. Comparing these there are some notable differences in the master toolbar (1), the toolbar (2), and the Navigator (3).
In the master toolbar we find a connection and login info panel, which displays the currently logged in user and their role, as well as the server they’re connected to (1). The signal light indicates the connectivity status (2). If you lose connection to the server the light will turn red (3). Don’t worry, you can still save your changes locally and reconnect later to publish your changes to the server, so no data loss will occur. In order to reconnect, you have to close the project and go back to the server page of the welcome screen. In the info panel you can find the latest claiming or publishing activity of all users (4).
Partitions
Before we continue with the UI differences in the toolbar and the Navigator, we need to take a short excursion into articy:draft’s multi-user approach, which revolves around the so called partitions.
To allow multiple users to work on a project simultaneously and at the same time avoid conflicts, confusion or even data loss, users can only work on parts of the project that are claimed by them. These project parts are called partitions. A partition that was claimed by a user is exclusively reserved for and can only be edited by them. By default each section of articy:draft is a separate partition – the Flow, entities, locations, and so on. However, depending on project size and people who need simultaneous access, it can make sense to create additional partitions. For example, instead of just having one partition for the entities section, we could have separate partitions for characters and items. That way one designer could claim characters and another one items. We will see how to do that a bit later in this lesson.
Locking state icons
The icons we see on the left side of the Navigator give us an overview about the project’s partitions and their current state.
A circle marks a partition (1), entries with an up arrow mark are child objects of a partition (2). You cannot claim a child object separately, only the complete partition. Gray means the partition is available (3). It is currently read-only for you, but can be claimed. Red means the partition is currently claimed by someone else, it is read-only for you (4). Green marks a partition that is claimed by you and which you can edit (5).
There is one more state you can encounter and this is marked by an yellow exclamation mark on the gray circle. It means that your local copy of the partition is outdated, you don’t have the latest changes someone else made. An update is required.
In addition to the Navigator you can also find the icons on the objects themselves, for example in the Flow view.
Claiming a partition
You can claim partitions from the Navigator (1), the toolbar (2), or with the right-click context menu (3) on a selected object, with the Update and Claim icon, a downward arrow on a green circle.
If the partition in question is available it will be automatically updated and then claimed for you.
The partition is now highlighted green and can be edited.
For other users working on the same project the partition will now be shown in red and is locked with read-only access.
Publish changes
If you are finished, you should upload your changes to the repository to make them available to your fellow team members. Again, you have multiple ways to publish your changes, from the Navigator, the toolbar, or with the right-click context menu on a selected object.
You will notice two different options to publish: You can publish your changes and unclaim the partition (1), which means the partition gets released and is open to be claimed by someone else, symbolized by an up arrow on the grey unclaimed circle icon. Or you can publish your current changes and keep your claim on the partition (2), in case you are not done with your task yet, which is the white up arrow icon.
Please note that you won’t see live changes of other users when looking at a partition claimed by someone else. Any changes done are local until uploaded to the repository.
Recent changes
If you publish any changes, a pop-up opens asking you to enter a description of what you did. The text field is auto filled with actions that were taken, for example editing connections or adding flow nodes (1). Feel free to modify or add to the description, as needed.
If you confirm with Okay the changes are published (2). Depending on the option you chose the partition is unclaimed or stays claimed by you.
If you have claimed and worked on multiple partitions, you can publish all your changes at once. To do that click the icon with the three up arrows in the Navigator toolbar (1). First you get a pop-up where you can select which partitions to publish (2) and if to keep them afterwards (3). After confirming this the usual description entry window appears.
You can open a list of the recent changes for the selected partition in the toolbar of the content area (1). The similar looking icon in the Navigator toolbar gives you the recent changes for the entire project (2). In these lists you can filter by date or search for a specific author, description, or revision (3).
Discard changes
If necessary you can discard (1) all your current local changes and have them overwritten by the most current data from the repository (2).
Rollback
In case changes were already published and need to be reverted you can rollback a partition to a previous revision. For that open the recent changes list for this partition (1), select the revision you want to rollback (2) to and click the Rollback button (3). Please note that you need to have claimed the partition and that there are no unpublished local changes. Confirm, then close the Recent changes window, and the rollback will be processed. At this point the changes are only local and you have to publish the partition again to upload them to the repository.
To rollback the entire project you need to have the Admin role and open the project in the so called exclusive mode.
Project admin
As a project admin, you will find some additional buttons in your toolbars. First is the red “enforce unclaim” icon (1). Let’s say a team member forgot to release a partition (2) and is now on vacation. An admin can unclaim the partition with this function. Be aware that this user will lose all locally saved changes that have not been published yet, so ideally use only as the last resort.
Another admin only function is “Repartitioning”.
I mentioned it earlier in this lesson that by default each section of articy is a separate partition. If you only have one writer or narrative designer in charge of say adding characters and items then having only one partition for all entities isn’t an issue, but if one designer wants to work on characters and another on items at the same time, we are starting to run into problems with the default structure.
Click the Repartition icon in the Navigator toolbar. In the dialog that opens we can now select any child object of a partition and turn it into a full fledged partition of its own. If you haven’t claimed the parent partition when you click on “Turn into partition” it will be auto-claimed if it is available. If a partition is claimed by someone else, you cannot do any repartitioning, the “Turn into partition” button will not be displayed.
If you have finished your selection, click “Apply all partition changes” (1). You can also decide if you want to keep the current partition or partitions claimed or not (2).
It is also possible to remove partitions again, if we wanted we could revert Characters and or items back to child objects of the Entities partition. To do that, simply click “Cancel partition”.
It is not possible though to remove top level partitions, like Flow, Entities and so on.
Please note that repartitioning your project can have an impact on doing rollbacks to earlier revisions, as a repartition is a major alteration of the project structure.
Exclusive mode
An Admin can claim the project in exclusive mode. This is necessary if the project needs to be updated to a new software version, or if you need to perform a rollback on the entire project.
In the project selector, right click the project and select “Open project (exclusively)”.
In the master toolbar a little crown symbolizes the exclusive mode.
All partitions are claimed by you. You will notice that there are no Publish buttons in this mode.
After you finished your work, select close project from the main menu to publish all changes and end the exclusive mode access.
In case you would like to discard your changes, do not save the project before selecting close project. Choose “No” to close the project without saving changes. However, in this case you need to open the project again exclusively and close it, because closing the project without saving will not remove your exclusive access, therefore blocking the project for everyone else.
If you want to perform a rollback on the entire project, open the project in exclusive mode and open the project-wide change history from the Navigator toolbar (1). Here you can select the desired revision (2) and perform the rollback (3).
You might see a yellow warning icon with a red exclamation mark in the lower left corner of a project tile.
When hovering over the tile more details about the particular warning are shown. One reason for a warning is that the project needs to be updated to a new application version.
Open the project in exclusive mode. Confirm that you want to update the project. Note that you will no longer be able to open it with the older articy:draft version afterwards.
A project can only be claimed in exclusive mode if all partitions are currently unclaimed. You will receive a warning if any partitions are currently in use and the process will abort.
Last but not least
Sometimes in order to complete a certain task access to multiple partitions might be required. For example, here I claimed entities and created a new item (1). Now I’d like to use the AI assisted preview image functionality for a temporary preview image. This however requires access to the Assets partition to store the new asset that will be used as the preview image (2). If the Assets partition is unclaimed it will be automatically claimed to complete the action.
If it is currently claimed by someone else the process will abort with an error message.
But don’t worry, there aren’t too many of these situations, and after you spent some time in the multi-user version you will know when to plan ahead and temporarily claim an extra partition.
Useful links:
Don’t have articy:draft X yet? Get the free version now!
Get articy:draft X FREE
*No Payment information required
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to keep yourself up to date and informed. To exchange ideas and interact with other articy:draft users, join our communities on reddit and discord.