Interface Basics

Your Machinations Workspace is where you’ll craft game systems, set parameters, Play and Forecast your models, and plot results. The editor has the canvas in the middle, with a View | Edit switch and a floating toolbar for adding nodes, the Properties panel on the right for the selected node, chart cards under the canvas, and the play bar at the bottom. The left rail switches between Home, your diagrams and more; the tabs Model, Scenarios, Agents, Data and Deploy sit in the header.

The canvas has two modes, switched with View | Edit at the start of the toolbar row:

• View is for looking around. You can pan, zoom, select, Play and ask the AI Agent, and nothing in the diagram changes. The component toolbar, Undo, the grid, the formatting bar and the Properties panel are put away to give the diagram the room.
• Edit is for changing the diagram by hand. The tools and the Properties panel come back as you left them.

Press Cmd+E (Mac) or Ctrl+E (Windows) to switch. On your own diagram you can also just start editing: dragging a component, pressing Delete, pasting, or typing a component's letter switches to Edit and does what you asked. Machinations remembers the mode you used last.

Some canvases are View only, and say why: a diagram you can view but not edit, an earlier version from History (restore it to edit), and diagrams opened on a tablet. While the AI Agent is changing the diagram, or while a Play is running, the canvas holds View; choosing Edit during a Play resets that Play. When the canvas is too narrow to edit, it tells you what to close to make room, such as the Properties panel or the AI chat.

From the header, you can see and use:

1. The diagram title, with an arrow beside it;
2. The History button and the Agent button (the Agent button shows only when the Agent is available);
3. The tabs Model, Scenarios, Data, Agents and Deploy;
4. The sharing and visibility chip (here Public on Community);
5. The Present button, whose menu has Start presenting, Hide all panels, Fullscreen and a Model | Scenarios switch, and the View options button, which opens the settings described in View options below.

Clicking the arrow beside the diagram’s name opens the file menu: Rename, Duplicate, Import from Google Sheets, Print and Delete diagram, plus three cover items: Use this view as the cover, Upload a cover and Reset cover to automatic. Only a diagram’s owner can delete it; a deleted diagram stays in the Trash for 30 days, and the notice that confirms the move has an Undo button. The description of your diagram is written in the Properties panel while nothing is selected. Adding a detailed description helps visiting users understand the core functionalities of your model from the get-go.

The View options panel (also called the canvas settings), opened with the button at the right end of the header, applies to every diagram you open in this browser. It has four groups: On the canvas, Component toolbar, Numbers and Help.

From this panel, you can:

1. Show or hide the grid, guides, labels, the diagram wizard and the zoom controls;
2. Switch the component toolbar between Horizontal and Vertical;
3. Show the formula on nodes, and choose whether connections show their Value or their Formula during a Play;
4. Choose how many decimal places are shown: 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10;
5. Turn interface tooltips on or off (Show interface tooltips).

The bell at the bottom of the left rail opens the Notifications panel. It is one list, newest first, in two sections: New (arrived since you last opened the bell) and Earlier. Opening the panel marks everything as read, so there is no Mark all as read button. Likes, remixes and follows for the same diagram on the same day are grouped into one row; other rows tell you about finished Forecasts, billing and invitations. Click a row to open the thing it is about.

The left rail is the Main Menu. It starts collapsed to icons; the button at its top left expands it to show the names. It holds New diagram, Search (⌘K), Home, a Recently opened list, and below them the places your diagrams live and the places to explore. A Get started checklist sits above your account row until you hide it; you can also open it from the Help row of the account menu.

1. My diagrams – all diagrams created by you
2. Shared with me – all diagrams that were shared with you
3. Team folder – your team’s diagrams (a PRO feature)
4. Google Drive – previously exported diagrams
5. Templates – a repository of ready-made deconstructions of games and game mechanics
6. Building blocks – ready-made pieces of systems to learn from
7. Community diagrams – diagrams publicly shared in the community
8. Creators – the public profiles of designers

Every diagram will consist of several nodes and connections. The Components Panel is where you can find them.

The toolbar floats at the top of the canvas in Edit mode; in View mode it is put away (see View and Edit). Pick a node type, then move over the canvas and click to place it; the arrows next to Gate, Converter and Delay open the other variants (Random or Deterministic Gate, Converter or Trader, Delay or Queue). No worries, you can always move nodes once added.

The editor has no sidebar. Resources and Parameters (the parameters (called custom variables in older guides)) are the first two buttons of the component toolbar. Layers has its own handle at a corner of the canvas, and History is a button in the header. To add an image, drag a file onto the canvas.

When a diagram component is selected, this panel displays the properties for the selected component. Color, line width, font and text style are on the floating toolbar that appears above the selected node, not in the panel.

The Properties Panel can also be collapsed using the arrows in the top left corner of the panel. In View mode it is put away, and it comes back as you left it when you switch to Edit.

Every node panel opens with a Behavior summary, a plain-words description of what the node does with its current settings. Delay, Queue, Converter, Trader and End condition also have a collapsible How it works card that animates when you hover it.

Check out the documentation for each Node/Connection to learn about each available setting.

If no components are selected in the diagram, the Properties panel shows the general details of the diagram: a Description box, an In this diagram list with one row each for Model, Scenarios, Agents, Data and Deploy (for example the number of components), and Details with the Created and Modified dates and the Owner.

The diagram’s colors are not in this panel. The Canvas colors chip at the bottom right of the canvas, next to Symbols | Icons, holds Auto-color and Background. Only editors see it.

Once you have modeled a system, at the bottom of the canvas, you can find the diagram’s Play Modes. Read all about it here:

The Chart makes it possible to plot multiple variables while your diagram plays, visualize possible outcomes, and help you monitor certain parameters either standalone or in relationship to others.

To open the chart, click a chart card under the canvas. Learn all about Charts at the link below.

The View Controller sits at the bottom right of the canvas. From left to right it has Show outliner (a mini-map), Fit to screen, zoom out, the zoom percentage and zoom in.

Hover over a button to see its name:

Show outliner opens a mini-map of the whole diagram above the view controller, and the same button hides it.

Fit to screen (⌘1) fits the whole diagram into the canvas.

Use the - or + buttons to zoom out or in, or click the percentage and type a zoom level.