Workbench and Continue Elsewhere

Work on one panel alone, or carry it to another device.

What the Workbench is for

A manga page is big, and one panel on it is small. The Workbench takes one panel off the page and lets you work on it alone, filling the window. When you are done you put it back.

Open a panel in the Workbench

Choose the frame tool, the last one in the strip, and click inside the panel. The panel is selected, and Open in Workbench appears at the top of the right side. Press it.

A finished page of five panels with the frame tool chosen and the wide middle panel selected. Callouts mark the frame tool in the strip and the Open in Workbench button on the right, above Continue Elsewhere

The panel opens by itself. The tools are the same; the layer list shows only this panel's layers. Anything on a layer outside the panel, such as lettering that sits over the whole page, stays behind on the page.

The Workbench: the middle panel alone in the window, its castle and two characters, with Apply to Page and Discard on the right. The layer list shows only this panel's two layers

Put it back, or throw the changes away

Apply to Page puts your changes onto the page.
Discard throws them away; the page stays as it was.

The back arrow asks which of the two you want, so you cannot leave by accident.

The question Leave the Workbench? with three buttons: Apply to Page, Discard and Cancel

While a panel is in the Workbench, it is locked on the page: you cannot draw on it there, so the two never disagree.

Continue Elsewhere: carry a panel to your other device

Lay out a page on your Mac, then ink one panel with Apple Pencil on your iPad. Continue Elsewhere carries that panel over iCloud; Send Back brings your edits home. You can go from iPad to Mac, too.

Here is the journey, illustrated. One panel travels; the rest of the page stays where it is. The three pictures are drawings of the idea, not the app's screen: the buttons are where the steps say.

1. On your Mac: send one panel

Select the panel with the frame tool, then press Continue Elsewhere, below Open in Workbench. Wait for Sent — ready on your other device.

Illustration: a Mac shows a five-panel manga page. A teal arrow carries only the selected castle-and-witch panel to an iPad. A lock marks the panel on the Mac. — The panel travels to your iPad. It stays locked on the Mac while you work elsewhere; the other panels are still yours to edit.

2. On your iPad: pick it up and draw

Open MangaLoft on your iPad. When the waiting part appears, tap Open. The panel opens by itself in the Workbench, ready to draw on.

Illustration: a hand uses Apple Pencil to ink the witch and foreground rocks in the same panel on an iPad. In the background, the Mac still shows the full page with that panel locked. — Work on just this panel with Apple Pencil. The sketch becomes ink; the rest of the page stays on your Mac.

3. Send it back: the edits go home

When you are done, choose Send Back on the iPad. Then open the original page on your Mac. The returned edits are applied automatically.

Illustration: a teal arrow carries the finished, inked castle-and-witch panel from the iPad back to its original position in the Mac's manga page. A checkmark replaces the lock; the other four panels stay the same. — Your inked panel is back in its place on the page, and unlocked. No need to position it or paste it in.

When a panel is waiting for you, MangaLoft tells you as it opens. On Mac, Window ▸ Received Parts… lists them at any time; on iPad, Open a Received Part in the document browser.
Parts arrive only while MangaLoft is open.
Both devices need the same Apple Account, signed in to iCloud.

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