🧰The Toolbar

Everything you need to create and run a productive, interactive and fun meeting

Tool Categories

There are two main categories for tools:

Board editing tools like shapes, text tools, and zones
Collaboration tools like sticky notes, topics and voting

The tools available are determined by whether you have Meeting Mode on (read more here) and, if you are a participant, what the meeting host has made available to you.

Tool details are in order as they appear in the app UI. Meeting Mode specific tools are at the bottom of the page.

Sticky Notes

Sticky notes are the main object you'll use in Ludi. Double-click anywhere on the board to create a sticky note, or use the toolbar to pick the color first. Note - on some templates, the color of a sticky note can be overridden by a zone's color settings.

Sticky note facts:

There are two sizes of sticky note: regular and large. To change the size of a sticky note, drag from the right-hand edge.
Each sticky is associated with its creator - hover over a sticky note to see who made it. (Use Anonymous mode to not track who wrote each sticky note).
Each person has a different handwriting style when writing sticky notes. Change your handwriting style in your Preferences.
When in Meeting mode, each person can hide and reveal their sticky notes as they wish.
You can write, vote, add reactions, draw on, and group sticky notes.

Sticky note options:

With a sticky note selected you are able to:

Set the sticky note colour (if not defined by zone)
Add a connector
Add a comment
Tag the sticky note
Access additional options via the 3-dot menu

Index Cards

These are just like real-life Index cards. Use these to write more than you can fit on a sticky note. You can also stamp reactions, draw, and vote on Index cards.

Private writing works with Index cards - you can hide and reveal anything you're writing while the board is in Meeting mode.
Index cards can be expanded - drag from the bottom of the card to make it longer.

Task Cards

Task Cards are cards that you can write in, with separate title and body fields.

Task cards do not have private writing and can't be grouped with the Topic tool.

Roadmap Cards

Roadmap cards are the building block of time-based roadmaps, to be used with the Timeline Frame.

Once you have added a Timeline Frame to your board, add the roadmap cards to represent your streams of work:

Select a roadmap card to access additional options:

Name
External link (for linking to related documents)
Tags (used for labelling with things like team name, initiative names, cost, linked OKR, estimate.)
Dates (including delayed / earlier dates)
Colour

Tokens

Tokens look similar to poker chips and can be used in a variety of ways - icebreakers, estimation, team health checks, planning poker, and workshops.

There are pre-made tokens with emojis or your team pictures, as well as blank tokens that can be edited.

Double click a token on the board to edit it. You can also add an emoji to a token on the board, using the reaction tool.

Connectors / Arrows

Connectors are arrows that link objects in your board, allowing you to visualise relationships or create simple diagrams.

Connectors can be linked to most objects, including shapes, sticky notes, task cards, index cards, roadmap cards, Jira cards, and tokens.

Arrow styles

You can pick straight, bendy or angled arrows:

You can add a label to an arrow path, change the connector color, width, line style, start and end points:

Tip / To make multiple connectors quickly, press the R key after placing an arrow to place another. Or use the the "Create Another" option in the arrow options bar.

Reaction Tool

Reaction emojis can be stamped on almost any object or placed on your board as an image. Pick your reaction and click to place it. Multiple clicks will place multiple reactions.

To remove a reaction, use the 'eraser' tool, found in the bottom right of the Reactions tool UI, or if the reaction has been placed on the board, you can simply select it and then delete.

When you start using Reactions, you will see a Recently Used selection. These are specific to you and will show consistently across any board you're on. Use the trash can icon to clear all recently used.

Add Reaction emojis directly to your board in the same way you would normally stamp a board object. If placed outside of a board object you can select the emoji and move, scale and rotate

Marker Pen

Draw anywhere on the board.

Draw directly inside Sticky-notes, Task cards and Index cards to attach your drawing to those objects.
Draw inside Zones or Frames and the drawing will move with the Zone/Frame when you move it - drawings inside of Zones/Frames can still be selected and moved independently
Drawing over the edges or outside of board objects will create a independent drawn object which you can freely move where you want to.

Edit your marker pen drawings, with the pointer tool( V) selected:

Click on a marker drawing to move, rotate, adjust line thickness or recolour
Double-click a marker drawing to edit, you can now continue to draw within the same selection, or use the marker eraser to remove drawings: - Note - The eraser removes complete strokes, not just the area you click on

Shapes

You can add shapes to your board, with a range of styles.

With a shape selected you will have access to editing options:

Switch the shape type
Border & fill style
Colour
Corner radius (roundness)
Line thickness
Container setting
Lock
3-dot menu for additional options

Text Tool

Click the canvas to add a text object or click-and-drag to draw out a text area.

The Text box behaviour can also be set with the “Toggle Auto Height” option:

Icon Library

The Icon Tool gives you access to 30,000 icons.

There are five different visual styles for each icon, which can be changed at any point.

You can change the colour of the Outline and Fill style icons.

Gadgets

Gadgets make your team sessions more interactive, and dare we say... fun.

Gadgets are added to the board and can be moved around, locked in place, or deleted as needed.

In the gadgets you will find:

A music player (Jukebox) - Pick your track and play music to everyone on the board.
A Timer - set the time for an exercise.
A Spinner - add your choices and hit spin!
A Counter - the counter counts up and down.
A Buzzer - pick a sound effect, then hit the buzzer to play it!
Voter Panel - Place a customisable Voter panel on the board - choose from pre-set voting options with Moods, Number Scales, Team Pictures and more!

Gadgets are in the toolbar for everyone when not in Meeting mode, or the Meeting Host can enable the Gadgets tool during Meeting mode.

Gadgets can be locked in place to prevent editing or deletion, but are still interactive while locked (i.e. to change song or spin the spinner).

Zone Tool

Zones are the primary object for laying out your board sections.

Zones can be any size.
Zones have a title, emoji field and border style. Zones can also override the color of sticky notes inside them.
Click on the title of a zone to select it.

Frames

Frames surround and organize an entire exercise.

They are different to Zones, which are a single section within an exercise.

There are multiple Frame types available, all with unique function and purpose.

Activity Frames

Activity frames are a way to organize different areas of your board.

For example, if you run a workshop with different activities, you can surround each activity with an Activity Frame, and hide the later sections until it is time.

Activity Frames have a sheep icon in their menu bar which you can use to pull ("herd") everyone to the Frame immediately.

Timeline Frame

The Timeline Frame allows you to create a pre-formatted timeline with dates that you can use to plan projects or events.

The Timeline Frame is configurable in the following ways:

Header & background colour
Choose Start Month and how many months to span
Add or remove additional rows - useful for different streams of work
Set auto-arrange options for content inside the rows and columns. !Note - this feature is in Beta and dynamically moves your content around. Use Undo if you want to reset after trying this.

Grid Frame

Grid Frames are layout objects with configurable rows and columns to contain content.

You can use Grid Frames to arrange content in tabular form

Grid Frames can be configured with any number of rows and columns, and have content-arranging options:

Gestures

Gestures are for presenting ideas and interacting with your colleagues. There are four functions in the Gestures menu:

Ping

A ping is an arrow you drop on the board to point at something. Click once to drop a single arrow or click-and-drag to highlight an area.

Off-screen pings are shown at the side of your screen. Click an on active ping to be taken to where it is pointing.

Tip - you can drop a ping on the board at any time by pressing the Tab key. An arrow will appear at your cursor's position.

Vanishing Pen

The vanishing pen lets you draw a temporary annotation on the board. It is useful for drawing attention to items on the board without permanently drawing on them.

Confetti

Fire confetti across the board with the confetti cannon! 🎉

Click and drag to aim, then release to fire confetti. We won't lie, it's kind of addictive.

Throw Hat

Pick this option to throw your hat across the board, of course. Similar to the confetti, click and drag to aim, then release to throw the hat.

Tip / in order to throw a hat you must be wearing one, so pick a hat to wear by clicking on your avatar in the top right.

Insert

Add data from various sources to your board

Template: Insert a Ludi template to your board.
Action Items: Add your teams actions into the board.
CSV: Import CSV data and convert to stickies or cards.
Image file: Import an image to your board.
Jira: Pull tickets from Jira directly into your board.

Comments

You can attach comments to sticky notes, task cards, index cards and roadmap cards. Simply select the object and use the comment tool.

A comment indicator will appear on the object once a comment has been added.

Topics (Meeting Mode Only)

Use the Topic tool to group similar stickies into organized themes.

To create a topic: Open the Topic tool, choose a color, and click to add to the board. Write the name of the topic inside, and then drag sticky notes toward it. The Topic will automatically group the sticky notes. To ungroup sticky notes, just drag them out of the group.

You can pick up a topic and it will bring any associated stickies with it.

You will only see the topic tool in the toolbar when in Meeting Mode but you can create topics at any time when selecting multiple stickies.

Alternative: Group selected stickies under a topic

For a quick grouping of stickies, you can also select two or more sticky notes and use the 'Group Under Topic' option:

Topic options

When you have a topic group, select the topic label to access additional controls:

quick-set the colour of all stickies to the topic colour
set the topic label as a Tag on the stickies (we have big plans for Tags in the works)
tidy up the stickies grouped in the topic

Voting (Meeting Mode Only)

The Voting tool allows you to hold a group vote. You can vote on stickies, topics, index cards, and task cards.

TIP: Sometimes a team member can start a voting round accidentally. If this occurs, it freezes the previous round's votes for everyone. You can remove the accidental voting round by either deleting the voting round from the voting menu in the bottom left, or the person who created it presses the undo button (Ctrl + Z).

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Last updated 17 days ago