Desks, rooms and the canvas

The Desk area is where you do focused work in PlexiDesk. It is the first of the four tabs under the workspace switcher in the side menu, and clicking it takes you to your Home dashboard. Your work there is organised in three layers: rooms, desks and the widgets on each desk.

This page explains how those layers fit together and links to every guide about rooms, desks and the canvas.

How rooms, desks and widgets fit together

• A room holds the desks that belong together. Use one room per project, client or part of your life, such as "Q4 launch" or "Home admin".
• A desk is one canvas for one piece of work. You fill it with notes, files, tables, browsers and tools. Opening a desk opens its canvas.
• Widgets are the things on a desk. A sticky note, a table, a browser, a timer and dozens more. You can keep related widgets together in a Section widget Coming soon.
• A desk does not have to be in a room. Desks you do not file anywhere sit at the top level, shown as Top level in lists.
• A plan is a room with a timeline. Choose Make this a plan on any room to add it to the Plans timeline for schedules and milestones. See Plans: timelines for your rooms Coming soon.

Where to find your rooms and desks

• Side menu > Rooms opens All rooms, with every room as a card. Click a room to see the desks in it. A plan opens its plan dashboard instead.
• Side menu > Rooms > All desks lists every desk across all your rooms. The same group also holds Shared, for rooms and desks other people share with you, and Trash.
• The Rooms and desks widget on Home lists your rooms on the left. Click one to see its desks on the right, and click a desk to open it. See Rooms and desks widget.
• The command palette. Press ⌘ K (Ctrl K on Windows), choose PlexiDesk, then My Desk in its menu. You see Your desks: a preview card for each desk and room at the top level. Click a desk's card to open the desk.

All rooms and All desks share one layout with five views, search, grouping and filters. See Browse All rooms and All desks.

What a desk holds

When you create a desk you can give it more than a name:

• Notes, for anything to remember about the work.
• Urgency and Importance, each on a scale of five dots.
• Duration, your estimate in minutes.
• Due, the date it is due.
• Room, the room it lives in, or the top level.

Every desk also has a status: To do, In progress, Done or Parked. A new desk starts as To do. See Track a desk's status and time.

Create rooms and desks

• Create a desk: name it, start from a template, file it in a room and open it straight away.
• Create and organise rooms: make a room, rename it, turn it into a plan and see the Free plan's room limit.

Organise them

• Rename a desk and move it to a room: from the desk menu or from All desks, one desk or several at once.
• Browse All rooms and All desks: views, search, grouping, filters and selecting several items.
• Archive, trash and restore rooms and desks: put work away without losing it, and bring it back.
• Rooms and desks shared with you: what other people have shared and how to keep your own copy.

Work on the canvas

Move around a desk:

• Move around the canvas
• The minimap and the jump list

Arrange and view what is on it:

• Select, move and arrange widgets
• Tidy, auto-arrange and Smart Stack
• Show a desk as columns, a list, a table or a gallery
• Open widgets full screen and side by side
• The controls on every widget

Bring things in and connect them:

• Drop files, links and apps onto a desk
• Turn a file into a widget
• Link widgets and set up wires
• See what runs on its own on a desk

Add widgets

• Add a widget to a desk: the Add widget menu, grouped by what you want to do, with search.
• Add widgets with a single key
• Section widget Coming soon: a labelled frame that groups widgets.
• Portal widget Coming soon: a live window into another desk.

Desk tools

• Desk quick actions in the header
• The desk menu: where you are, who's here, rename, share and move
• The tool rail on the right of a desk
• Track a desk's status and time
• Desk templates
• Desk history: restore or branch a past state
• Resume: a handoff note for a desk
• Set up a desk with AI
• The load ring and parking widgets
• Related desks and 'since your last visit'
• Turn a widget into its own desk
• Duplicate widgets and keep copies in sync

Settings, limits and accessibility

• Canvas navigation settings: how dragging, panning and zooming feel.
• Light, dark and colour themes Coming soon and Theme studio: fonts, text size, density and canvas look Coming soon: how your desks look.
• Use the desk with a keyboard or screen reader
• What each plan includes Coming soon: desks are unlimited on every plan. The Free plan allows three rooms, and Pro and Team allow as many as you like.