Boards and canvas

A board stores each widget with its position, size, settings and styling, the edges that connect widgets to alerts (see Alerts), plus the camera (where you are looking and how far you are zoomed in) and the canvas style: colour, grid and minimap. It also stores the B Cash watch settings for that board; see Board Agent. Sizes and distances on this page are in board pixels (px), the units the canvas uses before zoom is applied.

The first board on a fresh install is empty and called My board. A board made from a template takes the template's name. A few things are not saved with the board: the active tool, grid snapping, the selected widget and the undo history. Whether the tool panel is hidden and which Add groups you left open are remembered on this device, but they are not part of any board.

The top bar holds the controls you reach for most, and the command palette reaches the rest. Controls drop out of the top bar as the window narrows. The table lists them from left to right with the window width each one needs.

Open the command palette with Ctrl K (macOS: Cmd K) or Open commands. Type to filter the list, move with the arrow keys, press Enter to run the highlighted entry and Esc to close it. It adds widgets, runs the board and view actions named on this page, switches boards and starts a board from a template. When the window is too narrow for a top bar button, the palette still offers Fit board on screen, Zoom to 100%, Enter focus mode, Turn grid snapping off and Tidy up the board. Keyboard shortcuts lists every entry.

The tool panel on the left has four icon-only tabs: Add, Boards, Style and Connections. Hover a tab to see its name. Add lists the widgets in groups and has no search box, so to find a widget by name use the palette. A widget you add lands in the middle of what you are looking at, in a free spot when there is one, and the camera does not move. Getting started walks through both routes.

Scroll the wheel or swipe with two fingers to pan, hold Ctrl (macOS: Cmd) while you scroll to zoom, and press H for the Hand tool when you want to drag the board from anywhere.

Two tools decide what a drag does. The Select tool is the default and the one for working with widgets: press V (or P) to switch back to it. The Hand tool, H, pans and zooms from anywhere, even over widgets, and nothing can be selected or moved while it is on. Both sit in the top bar, after the save status. Holding Space gives you the Hand tool until you let go or the window loses focus, and the toolbar does not change.

With the Hand tool on, drag, wheel and pinch move or zoom the board everywhere, including over widgets. Choosing it clears the selection.

The camera is saved with the board, so a board reopens as you left it. When the canvas is narrower than 768 px, which covers phones and any window under 1024 px wide while the tool panel is open, Cashboard fits every widget on screen when a board loads and again if you shrink the canvas across that width. On a wider canvas it moves the camera only when none of your widgets would be visible. Neither automatic move is an undo step.

A widget has two states, and the difference decides whether a click or a scroll reaches the widget or the board.

Click a widget once to select it. To make it active, click it again, double-click it or press Enter. A widget you add starts active, and a duplicate starts selected. Esc hands control back to the board, except while you are typing in a field, where Esc stays with the field. Selecting another widget, clicking empty canvas or switching to the Hand tool does the same.

Drag on empty canvas to select several widgets, or hold Shift, Ctrl or Cmd and click to add or remove one. A selection moves, duplicates and deletes together, and the Style tab offers align and distribute for it. Tidy up arranges every widget at once. Dragging a frame carries the widgets whose centre is inside it. The keyboard shortcuts page lists every selection key.

Moving

Drag a widget by its title bar, or a frame by the strip at its top that holds the label. While grid snapping is on, it lands on the grid, whose spacing you set in the Style tab (16, 22 or 32 px). Snapping is on every time you open Cashboard and is not saved with the board. Turn it off with the grid icon in the top bar (Disable grid snapping) or the palette command Turn grid snapping off. It keeps using the Grid spacing step even when Grid is set to None.

Resizing

Select the widget, then drag one of the four corner dots or one of the four edge lines. A resize drag follows the grid step while snapping is on, Shift keeps the proportions, and the drag stops at the sizes in the table under What a board holds. A locked widget shows no handles.

Nudging with the keyboard

• An arrow key moves the selected widgets 1 px, and Shift with an arrow moves them 10 px.
• Alt (macOS: Option) with an arrow resizes it: Right and Down grow it, Left and Up shrink it, by 1 px or by 10 px with Shift. Key moves and key resizes never snap to the grid.
• Nudging works only while a widget is selected, is not locked and focus is not on a button, link or field. Each press is one undo step. Ctrl or Cmd with an arrow is left to the system.

The full key list is in Keyboard shortcuts.

Duplicating

Click the copy icon in a widget's title bar (it appears on hover, and its tooltip reads Duplicate (Ctrl D) on Windows). Or press Ctrl D (macOS: Cmd D) with the widget selected, or run Duplicate selected widget in the command palette. A frame has no copy icon, so use the key or the palette. The copy keeps every setting, including any wallet addresses you entered, and starts unlocked. It lands in the free spot nearest the middle of your view, not beside the original, and is selected but not active. On the web, Ctrl D takes over from the browser's bookmark shortcut only while a widget is selected.

Deleting

Press Delete or Backspace with a widget selected, or click the bin icon in its title bar (Remove, or Remove frame on a frame). There is no confirmation, and Undo brings the widget back, with one catch on desktop: removing a Custom app also clears that embedded site's cookies and saved data, and Undo cannot restore them. The keys do nothing while you type in a field.

Locking

Lock position in the Style tab, under Selection, freezes a widget in place. It cannot be dragged, shows no resize handles, ignores the arrow keys and is skipped by Tidy up. A locked widget can still be used, restyled and removed, and dragging its body pans the board. Only frames show a lock icon, so for other widgets look for Unlock position in the Style tab.

Stacking

An ordinary widget you add goes on top of the ones already there, and so does a copy of one. A selected widget is drawn above the rest while it stays selected, without changing its place in the stack. Cashboard has no command to bring a widget to the front or send it to the back.

A frame names a region of the board, and a note holds text. Both are widgets, so they move, resize, lock, restyle and count toward the 500-widget limit like any other. Their own settings are in Frame and Note.

• Open the Add tab, unfold On the board and click Frame, or click Frame under Canvas tools in the Style tab. It starts as a dashed 900 by 560 px box with the label Section, which the label chip shows in capitals. Change the label under Selection, in Frame label.
• A frame clips nothing. Dragging it by its header, alone or as part of a selection, carries the widgets whose centre lies inside it. Locked widgets stay where they are, and so do widgets you selected along with the frame, which move anyway. Resizing a frame and nudging it with the arrow keys move nothing inside it. Its label chip counts the widgets whose centre lies inside it, for example 3 widgets. A selection box that starts outside a frame and crosses its edge selects the frame too. Start and finish the box inside the frame to pick only its contents. Tidy up leaves frames where they are.
• Open the Add tab, unfold On the board and click Note, or click Quick note on an empty board, or click Label under Canvas tools. Label adds an ordinary note, not a separate kind of widget.

The Style tab, the third icon in the left panel, has board-wide options under Canvas, options for the selected widget under Selection, and two buttons under Canvas tools. Every change autosaves and can be undone.

Select a widget while the Style tab is open and Selection switches to it. With nothing selected, Selection reads Select a widget or frame to edit its title, colors and lock state.

Tidy up repacks the widgets on a board into neat rows without changing any size. Click Tidy up the board in the top bar. The button needs two or more widgets and is hidden on windows narrower than 640 px. The palette command of the same name has no minimum.

1. 1

   Which widgets move

   Tidy up takes every widget except frames and locked widgets. It finds the smallest rectangle that holds them and uses that rectangle's top-left corner as the starting point.

2. 2

   In what order

   Widgets are sorted top to bottom, then left to right. Two widgets whose top edges are within half the height of the shorter one count as the same row and are ordered by their left edge.

3. 3

   How the rows fill

   From that corner, each widget keeps its size and goes right after the previous one with a 24 px gap. When the next widget would reach past the wrap width, it starts a new row 24 px below the tallest widget of the row above. The wrap width is 1,600 px, or the width of the original rectangle when that is larger.

4. 4

   Where the view ends up

   The camera then frames every widget, frames and locked ones included, the same way Fit the board on screen does.

Stacking order does not change. Frames and locked widgets stay where they are, so tidied widgets can land on top of them and can leave the frame they sat in. Tidy up is one undo step, and Undo puts the widgets back. Undo leaves the view where it is.

Fit to screen

Press Shift 1, click Fit the board on screen in the bottom-left corner of the canvas, or run Fit board on screen in the palette. The camera centres every widget, frames and locked ones included, with 64 screen pixels of padding on each side. The zoom can reach 200%, so a small board grows to fill the screen. The button appears only once the board has a widget, and a fit is not an undo step.

Zoom controls

The two zoom buttons in the top bar change the zoom by 10 percentage points and zoom around the board's origin instead of the middle of your view, so content can drift to one side. Ctrl (macOS: Cmd) with the wheel zooms toward the pointer instead. Reset view returns to 100% at the board's starting position, which may not show your widgets, so follow it with a fit.

The palette adds Zoom to 100%, which zooms around the same origin as the buttons, so content can shift, and Jump to <widget name>, which frames one widget without selecting it.

Minimap

The overview in the bottom-right corner pans when you drag inside it and zooms when you scroll over it. Turn it off with Show minimap in the Style tab.

Hiding the tool panel

Click Hide the tool panel at the top of the left panel, press Ctrl \ (macOS: Cmd \), or run the palette command of the same name. The canvas widens, and Show the tool panel appears at the left of the top bar. The choice is remembered on this device. Below 768 px the panel is a drawer that opens from Open dashboard tools in the top bar.

Focus mode

Focus mode hides the tool panel and the top bar so the board fills the window, for presenting it. Start it with Enter focus mode in the top bar or in the palette. It also clears the selection and fits the board. Leave it with Esc or the pill at the top that reads focus mode. While it is on, Ctrl K and Ctrl Z do not work because the top bar is gone, but the canvas shortcuts do. The fit stays when you leave. Focus mode does not close the Board agent panel if you left it open.

The Boards tab, the second icon in the left panel, lists every board under Your boards. Click a name to open that board. The current board is highlighted. The list is ordered by last change, newest first, and Cashboard opens the most recently changed board when it starts. Any edit counts as a change, panning included.

• In a browser, New board (the plus icon) and Create board ask for a name in a dialog, suggesting something like Board 2. A blank name cancels.
• New from template opens a list of the 12 templates, each with its widget count. Picking one creates a new board. See Templates and sharing.
• Hover a row for two icons. Duplicate board makes a copy called <name> copy, with the same camera, look and widget settings. Delete board asks Delete “<name>”? This cannot be undone. before it removes the board, and on desktop it also clears the cookies and saved data of that board's Custom app widgets. The last remaining board cannot be deleted, so its delete icon is hidden.
• Opening, creating, duplicating or importing a board saves the open one first, then clears the undo history.

To rename a board, click its name at the left of the top bar and type. Every keystroke renames it and is one undo step, and the browser tab or window title becomes <name> · Cashboard. The Boards tab has no rename control, and its names and order stay as they were until its list refreshes. Creating, duplicating, deleting or importing a board, adding a template or a shared board, and reloading the page all refresh it.

Use Undo and Redo in the top bar, Ctrl Z and Ctrl Shift Z (macOS: Cmd Z and Cmd Shift Z), or Undo last change and Redo change in the palette. There is no Ctrl Y. The keys are ignored while you type in a field, which then keeps its own undo. Each side keeps 100 steps.

• What is recorded: adding, removing, moving, resizing and restyling widgets, changing any widget setting, changing the Style options and renaming the board.
• What counts as one step: a whole drag or resize gesture. A key press and each keystroke in the board name or in a note are one step each, so a long note can fill the history.
• Moving the camera is not recorded. Undo and Redo keep the view where it is, so a pan, a zoom or a fit never uses up a step.
• A new edit after an undo clears the redo steps.
• The history lives in memory. It is cleared when you open another board or reload, and it is never saved.
• Not covered: creating, duplicating, deleting and importing boards, and the cookies cleared when a Custom app is removed.

Cashboard saves half a second after your last change, camera moves included. The top bar reads Saving, then Saved locally, or Save failed. The words show on windows 1024 px wide or more, while narrower ones show an icon, except for an error. Closing the tab or window writes the latest edit first. If that final write fails, the desktop window stays open and a browser may ask you to confirm leaving.

When saving fails, a red banner reads Changes could not be saved locally. Retry before closing Cashboard; you can also export the board from Commands. and offers Retry save. The usual causes are a blank board name, a name, title or frame label over 80 characters, or more than 500 widgets.

Back up and move a board

Open the palette and run Export this board to save the open board as a JSON file. Export covers one board at a time, so repeat it for each board you want to keep. Import a board loads such a file as a new board named <name> (import). Both live only in the palette.

On the web

Boards live in your browser's local storage for the site address. There is no account and no cloud copy, so boards do not follow you to another browser, profile, device or address. Clearing the site data, or a browser set to clear it when it closes, deletes every board, and no backup copy exists. If the stored data is missing, or any board in it fails the app's checks, the web app replaces the whole list with one empty My board. If the browser refuses to store data, boards survive only in that tab, and a banner says Browser storage is unavailable. Changes will last only in this tab; export the board from Commands before closing it.

Tabs do not sync. Each tab keeps its own copy of the open board and writes it into the shared list when it saves. Edits to different boards in two tabs are both kept. Edits to the same board overwrite each other: the last save wins and nothing is merged. A new tab opens the most recently changed board. A tab does not list boards created in another tab until its list refreshes, and a tab whose open board was deleted in another tab shows Save failed.

On desktop

Boards are kept in a local database on your computer. Cashboard Desktop describes the data folder and backups. The app runs one window, and starting it a second time brings the open window forward, so two copies cannot overwrite each other. Saving works as on the web: half a second after a change, and again when the window closes.

The canvas, the tools and every shortcut behave the same in both builds. The table lists what differs.