A layout is a drawing of your market with bookable booths on it. You draw the
place — streets, buildings, grass, your logo — then add booths that vendors can
actually be booked into.
Open Event Configuration, then Layouts, and click Add layout
template (or Add, at the top of the Layout templates table, if you
already have one). You can keep as many layouts as you like.
A brand-new layout offers to start from a map of your site. Skip it to
draw on a blank canvas, which is what the rest of this article covers, or
Continue to trace a real map instead.
Name it
In the Properties panel on the right, with nothing on the canvas selected,
give it a Layout name and a Pricing name.
The two are separate so the same drawing can exist twice with different prices
on it — one "Summer Pricing", one "Winter Pricing". They show as separate
layouts to pick from.
The other settings there:
- Add tax to booths — add tax to a booth's price when a vendor is
assigned to it. - Render assignment names — show the vendor's name on a booked booth
instead of its booth ID. Most markets want this on. - Redact assignments — hide who is assigned to each booth from other
users. - Hide unassigned IDs — hide the ID on a booth nobody is assigned to.
Split a big site into areas
One layout can hold several areas, each its own canvas — an indoor hall and an
outdoor street, say. You see one at a time instead of cramming both onto one
drawing.
In the Layers panel on the left, use the Area menu to switch which one
you're looking at — new booths and shapes land in whichever area is showing.
Click the pencil next to it to rename an area, drag its grip to reorder it,
click the trash icon to delete one, or click Add area for another one.
Note
Deleting an area moves its booths and other objects to another area —
nothing is thrown away.
Draw the place
In the toolbar, add a rectangle, circle, triangle or line, then click it to
set its fill, its outline, or no outline at all. Add text labels streets
and buildings. Upload image / SVG puts your own logo on the map, and the
SVG element library has ready-made pieces such as trees. Add location
point marks a real-world spot — see
Show visitors where they are on your map
for what it's for.
A few things that save time:
- Hold Space, or Option (Alt on Windows) and drag, to move the
canvas rather than select things. - Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V copy anything, including all its settings.
Ctrl+D duplicates the selection in one step. - Arrow keys nudge one pixel at a time; hold Shift for a full grid
square. - Hold Shift while turning something to snap to 45 degrees.
- Bring to front, Bring forward, Send backward and Send to
back, in the toolbar's Arrange group, move a shape in front of or
behind others. - Select two things and group them so they move together.
Lock what you have finished
The Layers panel, on the left, lists everything on the canvas and is open
by default.
Against each one you can lock it so you cannot drag it by accident,
hide it, or click the target icon to bring it into view when you have
lost it on a big map.
Lock as you go
Lock each piece of the background once it is where you want it. Otherwise
you will drag a street halfway across the map while reaching for a booth.
Add booths
A booth is not just a shape — it is the thing a vendor gets booked into.
Click Add booth, in the toolbar, once for each booth you want. Each one
opens in the Properties panel on the right:
- Set its Booth ID. It can be a number or anything else.
- Set its Width (ft) and Depth (ft), by typing exact numbers or
dragging its edges. - Tick its amenities, such as electricity or a vehicle space. These show
up elsewhere in Marketspread.
- Tick which pricing terms — Day, Week, Month or Event — it's booked by,
and set a price for each. - Choose which vendor types may book it.
Stop the wrong vendor booking the wrong booth
Limiting vendor types means a food truck cannot be booked into a 10x10
space. Set it once on the map instead of remembering it every time you
schedule.
Pricing has a lot more to it — different rates per day of the week, tags that
follow through to your invoices and reports. That is covered in
Set booth fees on your map.
Fill the map quickly
Set one booth up exactly as you want it, then copy and paste it, or press
Ctrl+D to duplicate it. Each copy keeps the size, colors and prices, so
you can go from one booth to sixteen in a few keystrokes and just position
them.
For booths that differ, set one up, then select the others — shift-click
each one, or drag a box around them. The Multiple Booths panel opens on
the right. Click Choose source booth… and pick the one you set up, then
tick what to copy — Size, Amenities, Attributes, Pricing &
Types, Font Options or Design Options. Click Copy to, which
also shows how many booths you selected. It changes twenty booths as easily
as two.
Save
Save as you go
Click Save, top right, every so often while you work. A dropped
connection loses whatever you have not saved.
Exit, beside Save, leaves the editor. Back on the Layouts page, your
layout is listed under Layout templates with its pricing name and booth
count. Click its name, or View, to see a preview of the map and a table
of every booth. Clone there makes a copy — useful for a second version,
or a scratch copy to experiment on without touching the one you rely on.