1_Basics

App intro

The Union Projects Notes app was initially designed as a Markdown note editor but has evolved into a project management app. Currently, it stores sidecar JSONS, CSVS, and Markdown notes in a few locations to maintain a log of different tasks, notes, and shot progress metrics. You will see this in action if you enable hidden files in Windows Explorer and browse to a shot. Inside that shot folder, you will find an invisible .union folder that contains JSON or CSV files tracking the user inputs.

Basic navigation

The app is divided into sections, which are toggleable in the sidebar. Each is detailed on their page in the docs, but here is an overview.

1. The Overview view contains a project task list, a project thumbnail, and a Project Users list.
2. The Project view is our shot tracker. Using a project's file system for organization, we can track status updates, user assignments for shots, and an interface to launch project files and view renders.
3. The Browse view is a WIP file browser with shortcuts to various network shares from other Union departments. It's a two-panel interface, so you can easily drag and drop between servers.
4. The Note view is where we can create, catalog, and edit project-specific notes. In addition to notes, we can store PDFs and relevant links to outside documents.
5. The Timesheets view allows artists to track their time on jobs. This timesheet is optional and provided as a convenience--not a mandate.
6. The Docs view keeps relevant workflow docs specific to the Union GFX flow. We have the option to publish these online for anyone to view.

Opening a job

Click here to open another job. This list of projects pulls from LucidLink and JobsLive and aggregates both into one toggleable list. Click on a job to load it.

Creating a new job

To create a new job, click here, select a location, and add the job name and number. Once submitted, it will load a project template to that location.

Settings

In this popup, there are some relevant project settings. Still, most useful, there is a way to add registry entries to enable some app functions and a way to set a location to store any user's timesheets.

Refresh

This button functions differently based on the view a user is in, but it essentially resets the view and reloads it. It's a brute-force way to re-index all the data and see any changes other users have made.