You don’t have to start from scratch: existing SVG plans and other events’ plans can be taken over. Saving keeps a backup, publishing happens automatically – as tabs of the event’s hall plan.
Taking over an existing SVG
“Import existing SVG plan” (☰ menu) picks an SVG file from the media library. The designer detects floors and rooms like the exhibitor plugin does (“Floor: …”, “Room: …”, see Preparing the SVG). For each floor it asks for the real width of the drawing so the scale is right.
| Field | Choice |
|---|---|
| Booths | “Only names that look like booth numbers (recommended)” – e.g. A-01, H-06B, 354, plus numbers entered at exhibitors; “All named objects”; none |
| Take over rooms | checkbox |
| Rest of the drawing | “Take over the original exactly” – frames, walls, rounded corners, published with the plan; “As underlay” – for orientation only; “Do not take over” |
Before importing, the dialog shows what becomes a booth and what doesn’t and reports duplicate names. Booths and rooms become editable elements with the original’s colours, rounded corners, line widths and fonts.
Draw the plan in your drawing program without room names, import it with “Take over the original exactly”, then click into each room with “Room from shape” – just type the name. Booths inside are assigned to it.
Another event’s plan
“Use plan of another event” loads, for example, last year’s plan – with “Replace this plan” or “Add its floors”. It is only loaded into the editor; only saving makes it this event’s plan. Assignments aren’t copied because they belong to the other event’s exhibitors.
Backups
Every save keeps the previous version; “Backups” shows the last ten with time and user. “Restore” loads a version into the editor – only saving makes it the current plan again.
Saving and publishing
On saving, the server checks the plan, sanitizes the drawing and creates or replaces one SVG file per floor in the media library. Each floor becomes a tab of the event’s hall plan, its rooms become sub-locations. The message reads “Hall plan saved.” or “Hall plan saved, … exhibitors updated.”
- The website sees no difference to an uploaded file –
[event_hall_plan], “View on map”, single page and print output work unchanged. - In the event’s “Hall plans” box these rows carry the note “managed by the designer” and the link “Edit in designer”. Tab name, order and further rooms can still be changed there.
- Uploaded plans in the same event stay untouched; floors deleted in the designer disappear from the list.
Whoever opens the editor takes the plan’s lock. A second person sees who is editing, can look at the plan but can’t save. When the plan is free again, the editor says so and saving works again.
Export
| Menu item | Result |
|---|---|
| Export floor as PNG | the current floor as PNG, 50 pixels per metre, 1200 to 6000 pixels wide, white background |
| Print / save as PDF | a print window with all floors, one A4 landscape page per floor headed “Event – Floor”; as PDF via the browser’s print dialog |
| Export booth list (CSV) | booth, exhibitor, floor, room, area; semicolon, UTF-8 for Excel; a booth with two exhibitors gives two rows |
When the add-on is removed
The hall plans created always remain – the SVG files and the events’ tabs –, and the website keeps showing them without the designer. The drawings themselves (projects and backups) are only removed when deleting the add-on if “Delete Data on Uninstall” is switched on in the exhibitor plugin.