The seat editor
The complete drawing editor — every tool, table shape, inspector field, alignment and renumbering command, plan setting, validation check, and protection rule.
The seat editor is a full drawing tool for seating: rows, tables of any shape, loose seats, standing areas, and the decorations that make a map readable. This page goes tool by tool — it's long because the editor is deep, but each piece works the way the heading says and you can read just the part you're holding a mouse over.
The toolbar
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Select | Click to select; drag a box to select several; Shift-click to add to a selection. |
| Pan | Drag the canvas — or just hold Space in any tool. |
| Add seat | Place loose, individual seats ("Loose seat (no table)"). |
| Add row | Drag to draw a row of seats in one gesture. |
| Add table | Place a table; the shape picker offers Round (click), Rectangle, Oval (drag to size), and Custom (click to add points, double-click to finish). |
| Draw oval / Draw shape | Free-form bodies for odd rooms and odd tables. |
| Add standing area | A general-admission zone — sold by quantity up to a capacity, no assigned seats; drag the handles to resize. |
| Add decoration | Stage, Wall, Door, Pillar, Stairs, Line, Oval, Shape — decorative only, never sold or counted. |
Fit re-frames the whole plan in view; the zoom follows your scroll/pinch.
Tables in depth
Tables are the editor's richest object:
- Shape — Round, Rectangle (with corner radius), Oval, or a Custom polygon. Size via the inspector (table size, width / height, edge length) or by dragging handles; rotation has its own field and an in-place rotate handle (the toolbar can also rotate tables in place as a group).
- Seating: Auto or By hand. With Auto, the Seats around control distributes seats evenly around the shape at a uniform gap — change the number and the ring re-lays itself. Switching a hand-seated table to even distribution asks first: "Replace this table's seats?" — distributing replaces what you placed.
- By hand — place chairs with the seat tool and attach each to the table via the seat's Belongs to dropdown. This is the mode for asymmetric seating (a head table seated on one side only).
- Composite tables — Add shape joins another body to the same table (same table number): an L-shaped buffet, a stage-thrust table. Composite tables are hand-seated by definition — even distribution applies to single-shape tables.
- Make table / Chair converts between loose shapes and tables.
Rows have their own geometry: a seat count, spacing, and a curve control for gently arced rows. Click into a row to edit a single chair; press Esc to step back out.
Editing points
Custom shapes and sections are point-editable: Edit points mode lets you drag any point (hold Shift for straight lines; points magnet to nearby corners), click a midpoint to add a point, and select a point and press Delete to remove it. Done editing points (or Esc) exits.
Selection, alignment, and layout
With several objects selected, the Align, distribute & flip menu offers the full set:
- Align left / right / top / bottom, align centre (horizontal) and middle (vertical);
- Distribute horizontally / vertically for even spacing;
- Flip horizontally / vertically to mirror — draw half the hall, duplicate, flip.
Drag any member of a selection to move the whole selection together. Duplicate (⌘D), Undo (⌘Z), Redo (⌘⇧Z), and Delete (⌫) do what they say, with full undo history for everything.
- Snap to grid keeps things tidy (grid size is visible and adjustable); hold Alt to bypass the snap for one precise drag.
- Lock freezes finished objects (Locked vs Movable in the inspector) so a stray drag can't shift the stage at midnight.
- Layers — Decorations, Loose seats, Tables & rows — control what's selectable while you work on one stratum of the plan.
Categories and codes
Every seat carries a category — a zone (in an arrangement) or a ticket type (in an event) — and a code the buyer and the door will see. Select a table to set its whole category at once; Shift-click chairs for a partial selection (Mixed categories shows when a selection disagrees). Labels on standing areas and decorations are free text.
Renumbering
Inserting a row used to mean an evening of relabeling. Renumber regenerates codes across your selection with a chosen direction — left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top — and a start at number. Combined with the validation below, numbering stays an afterthought.
Plan settings
Global knobs under Plan settings apply to the whole plan:
- Chair size and chair gap — density of every generated ring and row;
- Seat border (gap) — breathing room around seats;
- Number size and number weight (normal/bold) — how table numbers render on the map.
These are display-and-layout settings — changing them never touches what a seat is, only how the room reads.
Validation
The editor continuously verifies the plan and shows each check explicitly:
- All seats categorized — no seat without a zone/ticket type (uncategorized seats can't sell);
- No duplicate seats — codes are unique;
- Table numbering is continuous — or "Numbering skips 7, 13" when it isn't (a warning, not a blocker — some venues skip 13 on purpose);
- Placed matches intended — a table set to 10 seats actually has 10 placed.
Make the list green before tickets go on sale and the door runs clean.
Sold-seat protection
Once real orders exist, the editor shifts into protective mode and says so in a banner: you can still move, rotate, and resize everything — the room's geometry is yours — but tables with sold seats refuse seat renumbering, seat-count changes, and removal. Deleting a selection that includes sold objects keeps them and tells you: "N sold objects were kept — seats people bought can't be removed."
This protection is why last-minute layout panic can't hurt buyers. When you genuinely need to move a person rather than furniture, use Reseating — it relocates the guest while their ticket, QR code, and price stay intact.
Saving
Save layout commits the plan atomically; the editor guards navigation while changes are unsaved. In arrangements (the design studio), every save is auto-captured as a version, and a Version history panel lists them and restores any one — behind a confirm, with your current layout saved first so the restore is undoable. See snapshots and restore. Version history is an arrangement feature only — an event's own chart, once applied, doesn't carry restorable history.