Help & Documentation

A short orientation so you know what you're looking at before clicking anything.

• It runs in your browser. No download required to start; nothing to install. The first visit caches the app so it can also run offline later. There is also a native Android app; the Mac and iPhone apps are not yet available for download — the website lists them as coming soon.
• Your data lives on your device by default. Projects, gear, contacts, and templates are kept in your browser's local storage (IndexedDB), with an OPFS backup. No account needed.
• Cloud Sync is optional. If you sign up, the app can mirror your data to our self-hosted server in Germany so a second device can pick it up. Sync also requires an explicit consent decision — a one-time Cloud Sync consent dialog asks for it right after you first sign in (the sign-up form has no sync checkbox). Without an account, everything is local-only and no consent is asked.
• PDF export is the main output. The app produces professional gear-list PDFs, plus optional issued documents like sub-rental quotes, invoices (ZUGFeRD-compatible), and delivery/return notes.
• It's free for up to 2 active projects at a time, with 5 Power Calculator runs, 1 template, and time tracking on 2 projects. Pro removes those limits and adds Accounting (quotes, invoices, expenses, bank, taxes) and Data Management (camera-card offloads and verification) — see the FAQ for the full list. Gear lists, PDF export, Cloud Sync, and collaboration are on the free plan. Note: deleting a project sends it to Trash where it still counts toward the limit; only 'Delete permanently' from the Trash actually frees a slot.

Nothing to install. Open the URL in any modern browser and you're done. The first visit downloads the app to your browser cache, so subsequent loads are fast and work offline.

• Bookmark the URL on every device you use.
• On your first visit you'll see an 'Install App' prompt. Accepting it adds Cine Power Planner to your dock (desktop) or home screen (mobile) and runs the app in its own window without the browser chrome. On an Android phone the same prompt also offers the native Android app. See 'Installing as an app (PWA)' below for the details.
• Browsers supported: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge — current major versions. Mobile browsers work too.
• Creating an account is optional. Skip it now if you just want to try the app; you can sign up later from Settings → Account ('Create account') without losing anything you've built. Data Management is the one area that needs you signed in (and on Pro) before it opens.

A new project in Cine Power Planner goes through this loop. Each step has its own deeper section either below or in a dedicated topic on the left.

1. Create a new project — give it a clear name (date + client + type works well) and set the Prep period, Shooting period and Return day. The dates drive rental-day calculations, the Calendar and crew scheduling later.
2. Set up the Camera Package tab — define the camera body, lenses and accessories for each camera. The recording options on offer follow the camera you picked.
3. Build the Gear List by adding items from your Device Library (or the built-in stock catalog).
4. Organise into categories — Camera, Optics, Lighting, Grip, Audio, etc. Drag items between categories as needed.
5. Assign providers — mark each item as Rental, Owned (you), Owned (a contact), or Crew member's personal kit. This decides which provider's PDF it appears on.
6. Add the people and the plan — Crew, Calendar and Preproduction (shot list, schedule, call sheets) each have their own tab; switch tabs on or off under 'Configure Tabs'.
7. Export PDFs — the 'Export' button in the project header opens one dialog for the gear list, briefing, crew list, budget and more. Filter by department or provider so each recipient gets only what concerns them.
8. Archive the project once delivered to keep All Projects tidy.

The app is organised around the sidebar on the left. Everything else is a route within that.

• Sidebar — Projects → 'Home' is the start page with every feature on one page, and 'All Projects' is your dashboard. Below that you'll find:
• Favourites — the pages you starred under Settings → General → Sidebar favourites, directly below Projects. The group only appears once you have starred something.
• Tools — Search, Device Library, Contacts, Calendar, Time Tracking.
• Rental Management — Rental Houses, Owned Gear, Sub-rentals, Insurance, and the Production Dashboard.
• Accounting — Overview, Quotes, Invoices, Expenses, Bank, Taxes and the Layout designer. It starts collapsed, and the pages need a Pro plan.
• Additional Tools — the calculation tools (Power Calculator, Lens Coverage, Frame Lines, DoF Simulator, Diopter Calculator, Camera Simulators and more), PDF Tools, Data Management and Driving Mode. It starts collapsed; click its title to open it.
• Store — Accessories shop.
• Support — Settings and Help. Settings is where your account, subscription, backups, and the Auto Gear rules live.
• Recent — a small list at the top of the sidebar with the projects you opened most recently.
• Breadcrumbs — the trail above a page's title. Every part except the page you are on is a link. A sidebar group such as 'Tools', 'Rental Management' or 'Support' has no page of its own, so clicking it opens Home, scrolled to the group that lists the page you came from. Inside a project, clicking the project's name takes you back to its section board.

The app opens on Home. It lists every page and tool, grouped the way the sidebar groups them, with a search on top. Click the logo or 'Home' in the sidebar to come back.

• Search — type what you want to do ('battery', 'call sheet', 'invoice'). Every group narrows as you type, and English and German words both work. Esc clears the search.
• Recently opened — the last three projects you opened, one click back in.
• Favourites — star a tile to pin that page here and in the sidebar. These are the same stars as Settings → General → Sidebar favourites.
• Inside every project — the tabs every project has (gear list, call sheets, shot list, budget and more), grouped by phase. A chip opens that tab in the project you opened last; with no project yet, it takes you to All Projects.
• Jump links — on wider screens, a row of links under the search scrolls straight to a group.

Projects are the unit of work. Each project is one production — one wedding, one episode, one shoot.

1. On All Projects, click 'New' (or press Cmd/Ctrl + Alt + N from anywhere in the app). To start from a saved template instead, pick it under 'Template library' and click 'Create project from template'.
2. Give the project a clear, sortable name. A date-prefix convention like '2026-03-15 Acme — Commercial' keeps long lists readable when you sort by name.
3. Set the Prep period, Shooting period and Return day. These dates feed the Calendar, rental-day calculations, and Time Tracking.
4. Optionally fill in the recording and delivery specs (Sensor Mode, Recording Resolution, Delivery Resolution, Aspect Ratio, Codec, Base Frame Rate), the Production Company / Renter, the Location and the Rental house. Everything can be changed later in the project's General tab.
5. Click 'Create project'. The project opens and you can start on the Camera Package and the Gear List.
6. Set units (metric or imperial) and the currency in the project's '…' menu → 'Project Settings'.
7. Use 'Configure Tabs' in the same menu to switch on extra tabs (Contracts, Insurance, Carnet and Daily Shooting Report start switched off) or hide ones you won't use.

The Device Library is your personal catalog of equipment. You add a device once and it's available to every project. The library is in addition to the built-in stock catalog, which already contains thousands of cameras, lenses, FIZ motors, monitors, and accessories with their specs.

1. Open Device Library from the sidebar.
2. Use the 'Show' filter in the toolbar to switch between all devices, only the ones you added yourself, and the stock catalog.
3. Add a device with 'Add' in the library toolbar — name, category, and details (model, mount type, key specs) — or bring in a list with 'Import & export' → 'Import CSV'.
4. Star the devices you use on every project. The 'Favorites' category brings them all together, and every device picker lists your favourites first.
5. Don't try to add everything at once. Start with the 20–50 items you actually reach for. Add the rest as you encounter them.

Once you have a project and a library, building a gear list is the bulk of the day-to-day work.

1. Open the project, then the Gear List tab.
2. In a category, type the item's name into the add row and click 'Add' — or use 'Add multiple' to pick several devices from the library at once, or 'Add gear set' for a saved kit.
3. Adjust the quantity — defaults to 1. For items used in pairs or sets, set the actual count.
4. Add a per-item note if the project has specific requirements ('handheld primary', 'backup', 'client requested').
5. Drag items to reorder them, or drag between categories to recategorise.
6. Assign a provider for each item: Rental, Owned (you), Owned (a contact), or a specific crew member. Items with no provider end up in the unassigned bucket of any PDF you export.

PDFs export in the order you set, so the order matters for the people receiving them.

• Group by department: Camera Package, Optics, Lighting, Grip, Audio, Support, Power, Media/Data, Accessories. Use names that match your team's vocabulary.
• Order categories the way your crew thinks about a setup — camera first for video shoots, lighting first for stills.
• Inside a category, the most-important items first (camera body before the rod adapter, key light before the gel kit).
• Resist the urge to over-subdivide. Five clear top-level categories beat fifteen tiny ones.
• Items that belong together across categories — 'A Cam unit', 'Car rig' — can share a group: select them and choose 'Set group' in the bulk bar. Each category then shows the group's items together under its name, and the Gear List export can print the group headings or export one group alone.

PDF export is the main output of a project. The project's Export dialog covers the gear list, project briefing, crew list, preproduction, budget report, camera log, carnet and a project backup; issued documents (quotes, invoices, delivery notes) come from Accounting.

1. Open the project.
2. Click 'Export' in the project header. An unlocked project asks to be locked first — 'Lock and Continue' freezes it so the PDF matches what you checked.
3. Pick the export type at the top of the dialog, for example 'Gear List'.
4. Narrow it down: 'Department to export' (Camera, Lighting, Grip, Audio or all) and 'Filter by provider' — rental items only for the rental house, owned and crew kit for production, the full list for the archive.
5. Click 'Preview PDF' to check it, then 'Export PDF'. The file is generated in your browser; nothing leaves your device during export.
6. Send it with a clear filename — date + client + recipient. Example: '2026-03-15 Acme — Rental list.pdf'.

The app can install onto your computer or phone as a Progressive Web App. Installed mode launches in its own window without the browser bar, behaves like any other app on the system, and works offline.

• On the first visit you'll see an 'Install App' modal. Accepting it adds Cine Power Planner to your home screen / dock / Start menu.
• Click 'Not Now' to dismiss the modal — it returns on your next visit.
• Click 'Don't ask again' to suppress the modal permanently for this browser. Clear site data if you change your mind later.
• On iOS, the modal walks you through the Safari-specific steps: tap Share → 'Add to Home Screen'. Other iOS browsers (Chrome, Firefox) can't install PWAs.
• On Android, the modal offers two ways: 'Download Android app' installs the native app (Android asks for permission to install it, which is normal for an app from outside the Play Store), and 'Install as web app' installs the PWA. Chrome and Edge also expose 'Add to Home Screen' from their menus.
• On desktop Chrome/Edge, the install icon appears at the right edge of the address bar.
• Dismissed the modal? While the browser can still install the app, Settings → General → Advanced shows an 'Install app' row.
• The Mac and iPhone apps are not available for download yet. Until they are, use the web app — in Chrome or Edge on a computer if you want to copy camera cards with Data Management.

If you only use one device and never share projects, you don't need an account. If either of those changes, sign up — it's a one-time step.

• An account is just an email and a password. Free, no card required.
• Sign up at Settings → Account with 'Create account'. You'll verify the email once; after your first sign-in a one-time Cloud Sync consent dialog asks before anything is uploaded, and from then on sync runs in the background.
• Cloud Sync mirrors your projects, device library, contacts, and templates to our self-hosted server in Nuremberg, Germany. It's not on AWS / Google Cloud / Azure.
• After signing in on a second device, that device pulls your data automatically. Edits flow both ways from then on.
• You can sign out at any time. Sign Out asks whether to 'Keep Data Offline' (your projects stay on this device) or 'Clear Device Data'.

There are guided tours that walk through each major feature inside the live app.

• Open Help in the sidebar and switch to the Guided Tours tab to see the full list.
• Mr Watts, the camera mascot, presents every step — he stands on the tour card and points at whatever the step is about. He is also the assistant: Help → Assistant and the sparkle button in a project are both “Ask Mr Watts”. In the pink theme he is Miss Watts. Every answer an AI model wrote says so underneath, and that it may be wrong.
• Each tour highlights real UI elements and explains what they do as you go.
• On a phone the sidebar is hidden, so a step that points at a sidebar entry says so instead of highlighting it — it either takes you to the page itself, or names the button in the bottom bar that gets you there.
• Exit at any time with the X button or by pressing Escape.
• Your progress is tracked — finished tours are marked so you can tell which ones you've already seen.
• Contextual question-mark icons next to features open a short tooltip; press '?' anywhere outside an input to open the shortcut list in Help, or Cmd/Ctrl + / for the Help home.
• Outside the tours he turns up on his own now and then, peeking out from behind a card. He never covers a control and he ducks away if your cursor comes near — but he is not always quick enough, and catching him is its own reward.

Once you've made it through your first project, these are the next worth-knowing topics in roughly the order most people care about them.

• Templates — save the gear list of one of your recurring shoot types as a template, then start every similar project from it. Topic: 'Templates'.
• Keyboard shortcuts — the Quick Switcher (Cmd/Ctrl + K) alone earns its keep. Topic: 'Keyboard Shortcuts'.
• Owned Gear — track equipment you own, including financials and depreciation. Topic: 'Owned Gear'.
• Cloud Sync & collaboration — once you have a workflow you trust, share a project with a colleague. Topics: 'Cloud Sync' and 'Collaboration'.
• Accounting and Data Management — quotes your client can accept online, invoices and expenses; camera-card offloads with verification. Both are Pro features with their own topics.
• Tips & Tricks — small habits that pay off on every project (naming, archiving, library structure).