Desktop Plan on a Mac

• A Mac with macOS 13 Ventura or later, with Apple silicon or an Intel processor.
• No internet connection, except to activate a licence or check for updates.

1. Open the downloaded .dmg file.

2. Drag Desktop Plan into the Applications folder.

3. Open Desktop Plan from Applications or Launchpad.

If your Mac asks for an administrator’s name and password when you drag it into Applications, and you do not have them, drag it into the Applications folder inside your own home folder instead (make one if there is none). It works the same from there, and updates itself there too.

Updates install themselves from inside the app, as on Windows (chapter 19). If Desktop Plan is run straight from the .dmg instead of from Applications, it cannot update itself: the update bar offers the new .dmg to download instead.

A plan saved on a Mac opens on a Windows PC, and the other way round. Double-click a .dplan file in Finder, or drag it onto Desktop Plan in the Dock, to open it.

One licence covers up to three of your own computers, Mac or Windows. Activate it on the Mac the same way as on a PC (chapter 19). Each Mac counts as one computer, and so does each person who signs in to it under their own account.

On a Mac the menus are in the menu bar at the top of the screen, not in the window.

• Desktop Plan menu: About Desktop Plan, Settings… (the app’s own settings, which Windows calls App settings), and Quit Desktop Plan.
• File, Edit, Task, Project, View and Help hold what they hold on Windows.
• Window: minimise, zoom and full screen.

Save, Undo and Redo stay at the top left of the window.

The ⌘ Command key does on a Mac what Ctrl does on Windows. The menus show each shortcut the Mac way.

In a grid cell you are typing in, ⌘Z throws your typing away and puts the cell back as it was, as Esc does (with a cell’s calendar open, the first ⌘Z closes the calendar); press ⌘Z again to undo the last change to the plan. In other boxes, ⌘Z does nothing while you type: press Return (or leave the box) to keep what you typed, and ⌘Z then undoes it as one change.

The keys for building a plan, as Microsoft Project has them, work on a Mac with ⌘ for Ctrl and Option (⌥) for Alt:

A Mac has no Insert key, so ⌘I inserts a task. On a Mac laptop the F-keys need fn held down: fn+⌘F2 links tasks, fn+F1 opens this guide.

The keys that move around the grid (arrows, Tab, Enter, Esc, Delete) are the same on both. Most Mac keyboards have no Page Up or Page Down key: hold fn with the up or down arrow instead.

F11 opens the dashboard on Windows. On a Mac, F11 usually shows the desktop, so use View › Dashboard instead.

Is anything different apart from the keys? Everything in chapters 1 to 21 works the same on a Mac, apart from the keys in this chapter. Chapters 22 and 23 describe a Windows PC’s network settings; a Mac’s are in System Settings > Network.

Where are my settings and licence kept? In your own Library folder on this Mac. Your plans are wherever you save them.