New Plan...

This command creates a new plan. The following dialog will appear:

Enter a name for the plan. The name does not have to be unique, but it helps, and it should be something that is easy for you to remember.

After you've entered a name for the plan, the Plan Settings dialog described with the Edit Plan... command will appear, allowing you to enter initial settings for your new plan. The default start time for the plan is the time that War Room Applet is set to; the default end time is two hours later. If you want the plan to start at a different time or last for longer (or shorter) than two hours, change those values here.

After you create a plan, it will be your current plan.

Edit Plan...

This command changes the settings for your plan. You will see the Plan Settings dialog:

Here you can change the start and end times for your plan. When you change the start or end times for the plan, the start and end time of each marking you've made on the map for the plan is changed as well. Any new object you add to the plan will be set to that start and end time.

You can also set the plan to "Locked", or a "Locked" plan to "Unlocked". When a plan is Locked, only the person who created the plan can make any changes to it or delete it. Other changes to the plan won't be saved. If you don't want anyone else to alter your plan, set it to "Locked"; otherwise anyone with the proper security clearance can change it anyway they want.

Save image for Plan...

This command creates an image on the AHC server that will tie in with the AHQ Alerts. Between the start time and the end time of the plan, the AHQ Alert will include a link with the plan name to this image. This is a quick way to communicate a plan diagram to the Allied community at large, even those poor souls who do not use War Room Applet. (Even if you do not use this command, your plan will be mentioned in AHQ Alerts between it's start time and end time; there will just be no link to an image.)

When you use this command, you should see a window like this appear:

This window is just for your information; it confirms that the image was (or was not) created successfully on the server.

In order to tie the plan with the image, some War Room Applet data for the plan is updated. This update is not saved to the server until you use the Refresh command,

You can use Image Saved Dialog as many times as you want to get the image right, but only one image is saved with the plan; each overwrites the one before.

Delete Plan...

This command deletes the current plan. You will see the following confirmation dialog box:

From the dialog, you have three options. You can delete just the plan, but leave the plan objects. From then on it will be as if you created the plan objects without having a current plan; this is normally not what you want. The second option is to delete the plan and all its objects; they will all disappear from the map. There is no way to undo this operation (generally, but if you exit War Room Applet without using the Refresh... command the deletion won't be made in the database). The final option is to cancel and not delete anything at all.

Select Plan Objects...

This is the first of two different ways to select the objects that compose a plan. This command selects all the plan objects that make up your current plan; if you have no current plan, it will select all the current plan objects that are not attached to any plan. The selected objects are displayed in the Plan Object Dialog described with the Plan Object Select... command below.

This command is not used that often since, if you are going to operate on all the objects in a plan, it is usually easier to use the Edit Plan... or Delete Plan... commands instead.

Undo last plan item

This command removes the last plan item you created. There is no way to re-do something you undo, and you can undo only the very last plan object. If that arrow looks funny, or the text is in the wrong place, this is the command to use.

Feature Select

The first planner mode is Feature Select. This is the mode that is selected by default when you first start up in Planner mode. In Feature Select mode, you don't manipulate plan items at all; instead, when you click in the map view, it selects the feature you clicked on, just as in View mode.

Plan Object Select

In this mode you can select a group of plan objects by drawing a bounding box around them. You will see this in the interaction area:

Click and drag in the map area. A selection rectangle will be displayed. When you release your drag, if the rectangle contained any plan items, the following dialog will be displayed:

This dialog shows the objects you have selected. The objects are listed with their type, the plan to which they belong, and their start and end times. Use this list to make sure you have selected the objects you intended. Remember that this command lets you select any plan object you can see; you can select objects that aren't in your current plan, and you wouldn't want to change or delete them by mistake.

• If you are having trouble selecting a text box, make sure the selection rectangle goes all the way around it without going through it.

• If you are having trouble selecting a label on the map, make sure the selection rectangle includes the beginning of the label.

From the dialog, you can choose to delete the selected plan objects, or to change their start and end times. (These are the only operations currently supported, although more will probably be added later.) It's usually not a good idea to change object start and end times independently of the plan that contains them (it can be useful if you are doing a complicated plan that shows a sequence of events over time), so you will normally use this mode to delete objects you no longer want in the plan.

Draw Line

In this mode, you can draw a line on the map by clicking and dragging on the map in the Map Area. Each line you add will be a plan object in your current plan, and will be visible to other users looking at the same time as soon as you Refresh the world.

In the Interaction Area, you can pick the color (including the transparency) of the line you draw, as well as the width. You can also pick whether the line should end with an arrow or not. As you change the color, transparency, or width of the line, a sample line with the same properties is drawn in the Interaction Area.

Add Text Box

In this mode, you can drag a rectangle in the Map Area. A text box will appear in this rectangle. You can add any text you want to the text box. If the text is long enough, scrollbars will be added. You can put any amount of text there, and edit it right in the box on the map. Once you've added a text box to the map, it is one of the plan objects in your current plan.

The text box will appear at the size you give it on any of the maps, so be careful about covering up other important information. If you add a text box to a large scale map, it will appear as a little icon when the plan is opened with a smaller scale map, so important information is not obscured. The icon can be opened to the full text box by pressing it.

Add Text Label on Map

This mode lets you put text directly on the map, instead of in a text box. You type the message that is to appear on the map in the text box in the Interaction Area. When you click on the map, the text is drawn starting at that point with the attributes you choose. The Map Label becomes one of the plan objects for your current plan.

In the Interaction Area, you can pick the text color and transparency in just the same way you pick the color for lines you draw.

You can pick the font size of the text; the slider scale runs from 4 to 32 points. The font size is applied to the current map. If you look at the same label on a map with a different scale, the font size will also be scaled appropriately.

Text labels can be drawn at an angle. The Rotate: slider represents the angle at which the text will be drawn, counterclockwise from 0 (level horizontal). The tick marks represent 90 degree increments.

You can request that the text is drawn Bold, Italic, or both.

Place OrBat Unit

This mode displays the AHC OrBat window in the Interaction Area. If you click in the Map Area, the unit marker for the currently selected unit in the AHC OrBat is placed at that position on the map. The unit position becomes an object in your current plan.

A unit marker can only appear in one position on the map at a time. If the unit appears at another position on the map, it will be moved to the new position you select. If a unit position is moved, it changes the existing plan object for the unit position, it does not create a new plan object.

Place Generic Unit

In this mode, you can select a unit type and click on the map to place a marker representing that type of unit on the map. The marker position becomes an object in your current plan. You would use this mode when you are illustrating a plan that will involve specific types of units, but you don't know what specific AHC OrBat units will be involved. This is particularly useful when placing markers representing observed or expected German units, since these of course will not be in the OrBat.

First, you will select a nationality. Then you can select a unit marker from a selection for that nationality. When a marker is selected, click on the map to place it there. Unlike placing AHC OrBat units, you can place as many identical generic markers in your plan as you want.