RotoScheduler manual › Reference

What changed

Describes RotoScheduler 0.3.4 · checked 2026-10-27 GMK

The manual describes the version of RotoScheduler the site offers for download. This page lists what each release changed for a planner, newest first.

0.3.4

Windows is updated to 0.3.4, released with RotoSpider 0.8.23 in one package, macOS and Linux later; the browser demo at rotoscheduler.app is unchanged.

• On Windows the download carries the runtime both programs share as the folder program\runtime-1\, in place of RotoRuntime_1.exe. A working folder from 0.3.2 or 0.3.3 already has that folder: copy the new EXE into it (Install the trial).
• On Windows a new version, at its first start, takes the language of the RotoScheduler version you used last. Close the older version before that first start. RotoScheduler and RotoSpider each have their own taskbar button.

0.3.3

Windows, macOS and Linux are updated to 0.3.3, released with RotoSpider 0.8.21 in one package per system; the browser demo at rotoscheduler.app is unchanged. The trial runs 30 days from its first start on your computer; the registered trial runs 180 days (Install the trial).

• On macOS one disk image holds RotoScheduler and RotoSpider, and on Linux one ZIP holds both AppImages. Each program's name carries its version, so a later version installs beside this one, and RotoScheduler now opens while RotoSpider is open. RotoScheduler opens the trial sample, as on Windows. The 0.3.1 program stays and runs to December 30, 2026; 0.3.3 asks for the agreement once more.

• Write a Note on a job, a mold or a machine-day in the inspector; it stays through plan edits and reopening, appears on the card or hover, and the day's and molds' notes print on the machine-day sheet. See Notes that stay.

• A selected loaded cycle offers + What else fits in this load: the list checks every job's mold beside the molds already there, one by one, and a click adds one copy for one cycle as a drop would. The inspector's Run cycles field lengthens or shortens a selected run. See Move a run, then undo.
• A selected order shows delivered late, produced late and production date unknown when above zero. The status chip reads A new plan is called for wherever the test against the last dispatch does. See Minimum, wanted and maximum.
• A dispatched machine-day exports its issued times, molds, copies and orders, including each order's customer and pieces. Type the customer in Factory inputs; the board, details and sheet show what changed since the first dispatch. See Export a machine-day or a week.
• On a selected arm, record Seen, Mounted and Taken off, or Correct a line. Each mold copy shows where the latest line puts it; the next opening uses that record and later days carry the plan’s mountings. See Count, delivery and report.
• Loads keep their mold copies when edited, moved, dispatched and reported. Beside Count, select a product and use its copy's Record stop to put that copy out of use until a confirmed end; loads naming it are impossible, and Generate or a new drop uses another available copy. See Count, Delivery and Report.
• A plan or version saved by 0.3.2 does not open (What is not supported).
• Factory inputs shows each mold copy's ID beside Mold copies. Take from masterdata keeps those IDs, adds copies for a higher count, and keeps and lists them for a lower count. A renamed mold gets new copies and IDs. See Describe the factory.
• Record stop records that a machine or an arm stopped; End records its confirmed end and Correct replaces it whole. The board marks impossible and at-risk cycles with their stop line; impossible cycles give no planned pieces. Loads stay in place. See Count, Delivery and Report.
• Daily entry records a date for one machine or all machines, including dispatched dates before the plan begins. Report each cycle and state the copies seen on each arm in one submission, or leave a row Not reported; positions with no dispatch are reported in the same form. Correct an existing line whole. Count opens on the last day whose production is over. Support recordings made before this change cannot be replayed in this version. See Count, Delivery and Report.
• Dispatch records the plant's figures at that moment. The inspector compares every answer with the last dispatch still in force: inside the allowance, or a new plan is called for, with urgent losses and any surplus. Nothing is accepted, moved or dispatched by the test. See Count, Delivery and Report.

0.3.2

Windows was updated to 0.3.2, released with RotoSpider 0.8.20 in one package. macOS and Linux stay at 0.3.1 until the next trial release; the browser demo at rotoscheduler.app is unchanged. The trial is valid through December 30, 2026.

One folder with RotoSpider

• The Windows download is one ZIP holding both trial programs, their shared runtime and the trial's data folder data\trial\; the plan and its versions live in data\trial\schedule\. Unzip it into a new working folder and run RotoScheduler_SCHEDULER_TRIAL_EN_0.3.2.exe (Install the trial).
• Take from masterdata in Factory inputs reads the molds, the arms of each machine model and the two clearances from RotoSpider's workbook and settings in that folder. The sample is built from the trial workbook, so a take on it changes nothing until the workbook is edited in RotoSpider (Describe the factory).
• The sample factory is new: the same six machines and two weeks, with the trial workbook's 24 molds, 20 products and 38 orders; the stored plan makes 848 of 868 good pieces, on three of the six machines most days. Its first open takes several seconds.
• A plan or version saved by 0.3.1 does not open (What is not supported).

Orders, stock and quantities

• Factory inputs has one list of orders, under Orders: order number, ordered quantity, due date, priority and allowed machines. The separate list of typed jobs is gone; a typed order is an order like any other.
• An order's number is what you read and edit. Renaming an order keeps its planned pieces, and two orders may carry one number.
• Stock belongs to a product. A stock rule states the safety stock kept back, the target and an allowance; each product's minimum, target and maximum to make follow from its orders and its stock, and one quantity check limits new production in Generate, the drop light and Apply (Minimum, wanted and maximum).
• Every load states its mold copies and, per product, the pieces it starts. The inspector gives each order its pieces from stock, planned, required unmet, late with their piece-days, wanted short and surplus.
• The plan states its own first and last dates, and Generate plans only machine-days inside them.
• Count, Delivery and Correct in the inspector write a stock count through a day and a delivery of a product on a day into the production log. A product's stock on hand is its latest count less the deliveries after it.
• An order with a delivery offers Close in Factory inputs instead of removal; it keeps its deliveries with nothing more owed (Jobs and exceptions).
• A named version holds the plan on the board, not the plant's facts: opening a version applies today's facts with the version's plan in place of the board's, and what no longer fits is taken off and listed (Keep a named version).

Screens

• Settings names the running program. The inspector's stock panel follows the selection. A job card shows its planned and target good pieces whole, 44 / 45. The inspector's fields and the dialogs are drawn in the app's own styles.
• The Undo and Redo keys do nothing while a dialog of the page is open.

Dispatch and Take back

• Select a machine-day and click Dispatch. Its loaded and empty cycles, times and mold removals are recorded in the production log. The board hatches protected cycles. A refused hand edit names the dispatch.
• Take back withdraws that dispatch. Cycles and mold removals whose recorded begin has arrived stay protected; later work is freed and checked against today's facts, with what comes off listed. The plan's current projected start does not decide protection. You may dispatch the day again.
• Open, Versions, Factory inputs and Generate keep protected work. Generate can plan the free cycles of a partly protected day. An order removed or lowered under protected work leaves its molds in place and lists the uncredited pieces.
• Both acts save the document, restart Undo and append a production-log line that cannot be edited or removed. Neither records actual output, stock, deliveries or stops. See Keep a named version and What the trial does not do.

0.3.1

Windows, Apple-silicon Mac and Linux were updated to 0.3.1, and the trial was valid through December 30, 2026; the browser demo at rotoscheduler.app was unchanged. This release focused on planning by hand: the plan stayed on the board when factory inputs changed, and the board showed before a drop whether it would land.

The trial on Windows, files and support

• On Windows the trial is a folder, not an installer: unzip the download into a working folder and run RotoScheduler_SCHEDULER_TRIAL_EN_0.3.1.exe. A later version is one more EXE in the same folder, and the older one still runs. The install page says what the folder holds and what it does not support.
• The working plan and its named versions are files in the data folder, data\scheduler-trial\schedule\ in the working folder on Windows, so every version, and a copy of the folder on another computer, opens the same plan (Save and reopen a plan).
• The plans and versions of 0.3.0 are not carried over, and a plan file saved by 0.3.0 does not open.
• Each window's title carries its version, for example RotoScheduler v0.3.1.
• After a crash, or after the app was ended in Task Manager, the next start says so, and Export bundle… saves the session that failed (Send a support bundle).

Planning by hand

• Apply in Factory inputs keeps the plan on the board (Keep the current plan, the default): only what the new inputs no longer allow comes off, and a list above the board says what came off and why (Describe the factory).
• The board's light has four colours: green lands, gray while the full check runs, yellow lands after a confirmation, and red takes nothing and says why (Move a run, then undo).
• A refused edit gives its reason first and, where the reason lies elsewhere, names that place, such as the mold, the date and the cycle of a copy in use there.
• A click on a run selects the rest of it on that date with every copy; Copies takes fewer, and the move is one step to undo.
• An order whose mold has several copies is dropped in one go, with Copies for the copies each cycle mounts (Jobs and exceptions).
• A mold copy is in one place at a time: where a move, a drop or an unschedule leaves a run without its copy and the copy sits idle on another arm, the edit removes it there, turns yellow and lists each removal; where no removal frees the copy in time, the edit is refused and says where the copy is. Apply in Factory inputs does the same for the plan it keeps and lists the removals (Move a run, then undo).
• Hover a loaded cycle, or hold Ctrl and click it, for the weight of its molds against the arm's maximum load, such as 553 of 1000 kg (Mold bands and colours).

Generate and the plan line

• Generate plan (experimental) keeps the plan that costs least, pricing the pieces that must be made but are not, the piece-days late, the wanted pieces short, the machine-days used and the mold changes; a plan file can state the plant's own prices.
• Orders on one mold can share a shot, so each can reach its required quantity (Minimum, wanted and maximum).
• The plan line adds the late pieces and their piece-days, {count} late ({days} piece-days), and counts only the machine-days the plan uses (A first look at a plan).
• A plan file can state a machine-day's own working hours, which may run past midnight, its shift changes, and that the arms change molds only at a shift's start; plans keep to them, and a selected run's details begin with its day's working hours.

Fixes

• A closed station closes its machine's day: if the only oven is closed all day, the day holds no load, and a note names the oven.
• A leftover job that could wholly wait no longer makes the week invalid.
• Generate plan (experimental) no longer loads a mold copy that another arm still holds.
• On a slower computer, Generate plan (experimental) is no longer stopped after two minutes without a word; a check that fails reopens the last saved plan and says so.
• The Changeover tab lists only real mold changes: a mold kept on its arm overnight or through idle cycles is no longer listed.

Known limitations in this release

• Run one RotoScheduler at a time on a data folder: once one window changes the plan, another open on the same folder refuses every change (Save and reopen a plan).
• A change in Factory inputs cannot be undone; keep a named version first (Describe the factory).
• Generate plan (experimental) never takes a mold off an arm during the day to free it for another arm; only a hand edit or Apply does (Mold bands and colours).
• Generate plan (experimental) can leave a machine with no stations described idle for the rest of a day: it counts a mold copy as free once the machine that used it has run its last cycle of the day, but the copy stays on that arm until the arm's next load, and where the copy is not free the machine plans nothing more that day. The cycles it leaves free can be filled by hand (Generate a starting point).
• The arm's layout check can miss a layout that exists: Generate plan (experimental) may leave out a group of molds that fits on an arm, and a hand drop that fits at the target mold clearance can turn yellow as fitting only at the minimum clearance, or, rarely, be refused (Move a run, then undo).

0.3.0 (2026-09-24)

Windows and Apple-silicon Mac were updated to 0.3.0, and Linux (an AppImage for Ubuntu 24.04 or newer) joined them. A larger step than the earlier releases: the plan is now worked out against the clock of each machine-day, the sharing rules are data you enter, and each order carries its quantities, its allowed machines and its start-by day.

Time-aware planning

• Each machine-day has a clock, and the counts you declare are converted to it. Generate keeps within each day's capacity, and a manual move is re-timed against the clock; a preview names the shot that would run late.
• A certified oven maximum is refused, in Generate and in previews. The same-arm time rule is checked.
• A fixed-arm machine may have more stations than arms, service may span two consecutive stations, and an arm may be switched off.
• Mold copies move between arms and machines on the clock. The copy cap counts parts per mold copy per cycle, so a twin mold gets one copy, not two.

Sharing rules as data

• Typed attributes on the mold type and the machine, and a rule set of five kinds, decide which molds may run together on one arm.
• A practiced record can admit a pair the rules would refuse, with one conflict warning for each such override.

Order quantities

• Each job has minimum, wanted and maximum pieces, with full-shot accounting.
• A yield allowance per mold type, planned in starts.
• The machines an order may run on: the Allowed machines column in the form, hand assignment, moves and stored plans follow it.
• Each order's start-by day, worked out by the engine and shown on every job card with a one-line explanation of how it was counted.
• One shot's pieces go to the mold's orders by need and due date, so an earlier order no longer goes late while a later one is served.
• A problem can state customer orders, stock on hand and a stock rule, and the engine works out the jobs; the planner sees where each job came from and which orders stock already covers.
• The score's accounting is stated once, and the mold-change count is right in the one part that counted it twice.

Fixes

• Taking production off a load that several orders share no longer leaves a plan the app refuses to reopen.
• The board's note strip says what the engine said, and says each day-by-day note once; the sample factory's 31 paragraphs become 4.

Known limitations in this release

• A closed station is ignored: if the only oven is closed all day, the automatic planner makes the same plan and gives no outage warning.
• A leftover job that could wholly wait still makes the week invalid (the netting whole-shot check).

The pages written for this release: Minimum, wanted and maximum, The machines an order may run on, Each order's start-by day and When the day's time runs out; the pages on jobs, the factory inputs, phases and timing, closed days and changeovers, mold bands and what the trial does not do were revised.

0.2.1 (2026-09-12)

• Redrew the arm rows. An unfolded arm row is the size of its spider, and each mounted mold is a coloured band with its name, as tall as the room the mold takes on the spider; two copies are twice as tall. The separate row per mold type of 0.2 is gone. A folded arm row is a thin thumbnail of the same picture; a dotted line under it means more molds than the thumbnail can show, and clicking it unfolds the arm.
• Click a band to select a mold run at that cycle; the selection outline and its handles sit on the band. With a run or a job selected, a click on another band still checks that destination; press Esc first to select the other band. Up and Down walk the bands, then the arm's cycle boxes, then the next arm.
• Heating is a flat orange fill, cooling a light blue fill, and mold mounting or removal a dotted texture within the grey service work.
• The arm's spider area is written under its name.

0.2 (2026-09-11)

• Replaced the separate docked day strip with one continuous time board. Day, Week and Month are shortcuts; the slider supports other spans, with right to zoom in. Keyboard zoom, Ctrl+wheel at the pointer and dragging empty space move between an overview and a few hours of detail.
• Added mold continuity lines and a colour for each mold. Thin lines mean one copy, thick lines two or more; hover gives the exact count. Colours can be changed in the desktop factory inputs.
• Added service, oven and cooler fills to projected arm cycles at a close view, with clock times and timing sentences in the inspector. Waiting and mold-change work are visible too.
• Reshaped the two-week sample with work on all six machines. RM-4 uses all three arms on every date with different heating and cooling times; RM-3 uses its second arm on four dates. Turret arms enter the oven A, B, C. The sample plans 868 of 892 parts.
• A plain click selects a mold run; Ctrl+click selects the single cycle.
• Made edit previews faster.
• Corrected opening a small document with three fully loaded arms, drawing mold lines across timing gaps, and accepting arms defined in a day's configuration. Timing messages name the configured closing time.

0.1 (2026-09-07, published as 0.8.12 at the time)

• Released RotoScheduler as its own application with Scheduler and Settings pages and a signed Windows trial installer.
• Opened the sample factory on first start, with a week board and a separate docked day strip.
• Supported manual moves with preview, apply, undo and redo; a Jobs list with an Attention filter; and editable factory inputs.
• Included experimental Generate, schedule documents, named versions, and CSV and Excel workbook exports.
• Published the browser demo at rotoscheduler.app and six video tours: the browser demo, board, jobs, Generate, factory inputs and documents.