Paste an input list

Most plots start from a rider that already lists every channel. Rather than retype it, paste it: Stage Plot reads each line, works out what the channels describe, and hands you the elements in a tray beside the palette.

It does not draw your stage. Nothing in an input list says where the drummer stands. What you get is the right objects, ready to place.

Steps

1. File ▸ Import input list…
2. Paste the channel list — one channel per line, with or without numbers — or tap Choose a file… for a CSV or text file.
3. Check the table. Every row is one element, and both the Name and the Element type are editable before anything is created.
4. Tap Add to tray. Nothing has touched your stage yet.
5. Drag an item out of the tray onto the plot, or click it to drop it in the middle of the view. Place all puts the rest down in a row.

What it accepts

All of these read the same:

1 Kick In          Ch 1: Kick In        Kick In
2 Snare Top        2. Snare Top         Snare Top
3 OH L             3) OH L              OH L

Numbers are optional — without them the channels are assigned in the order you pasted. Anything after the source name is ignored, so a full rider table pastes fine; the mic, the stand and the notes columns are simply not what a plot needs.

Channels are combined into objects

This is the part that saves the work. A channel list describes signals; a plot draws things. So:

Every original channel name is kept on the element, so the input list and the rider PDF still show Kick In, Kick Out, Snare Top — see Build the input list.

Percussion is deliberately not folded into the drum kit: congas and a cajón belong to someone standing somewhere else. A break in the channel numbers also breaks the grouping, so two separate kits stay two kits.

Rows marked with a ?

Some channels have no matching element. Stage Plot has a Vocal Mic, a Keyboard and a Drum Kit — it has no trumpet and no violin. Those rows, and anything the reader could not place at all, arrive:

• tinted in the review, with the type we had to choose,
• marked with an amber ? in the tray until you place them.

They default to a mic on a stand, which is physically what a trumpet is. Pick a different element in the review and the mark clears.

The tray

The tray sits under the element palette and only appears when it has something in it.

• Placed items stay, dimmed and struck through, rather than disappearing. That way undo has something to give back, and you can place a second vocal mic from a single row when a rider says "Vox" and there are two singers.
• Place all drops everything still waiting in a row across the stage — a tidy line to drag apart, not a guess at where anyone stands.
• Clear empties it.
• The tray survives a reload, so a refresh halfway through placing does not cost you the rest.

If it finds nothing

• "No channels found" — the reader wants one channel per line. A single line with everything on it, or a PDF pasted as one paragraph, will not parse.
• A spreadsheet file is refused. .xlsx, .numbers and .ods are compressed archives, not text. In Excel, Sheets or Numbers choose File → Save As / Export → CSV and pick that file instead.
• A scanned rider has no text to paste. Nothing can be read out of an image; type the channels, or start from a template.