Working with Base Plans

Question

In our area, it was decided that we should customize a Base Plan to be more specific to the way we work than the available Base Plans. So, I am working on creating that customized Base Plan. Since it is specific to our area and the way we work, I figured that I would simply create a local Base Plan and apply it to each of our projects. However, I would like to be able to easily update the plan later if we need to make changes. One neat feature about the Base Plans that are distributed with Paratext (i.e. SIL Base Plan, SIL Compact Plan, TSC Plan) is the ability to receive updates to the base plan with new versions, and thereby hopefully avoiding losing progress data in the future.

Is it also possible to manage versions of a Base Plan that I have created myself, or only the ones that are distributed with Paratext? If I decide to make a change to the Base Plan later, is there a way in which each project can recognize it as an update to the original Base Plan?

Answer 1

Stephen+Katt:

Is it also possible to manage versions of a Base Plan that I have created myself, or only the ones that are distributed with Paratext? If I decide to make a change to the Base Plan later, is there a way in which each project can recognize it as an update to the original Base Plan?

Just to expand on what @IanH said.

You can make a base plan from a project plan by holding down Shift while clicking on Manage Plans from inside the Project Plan dialog. This will show a new button that lets you save your current plan as a base plan (it will be put into the _StandardPlans folder in your My Paratext 8 Projects directory). You can then give out that plan to other people by having them copy it into their _StandardPlans folder.

In 9.1, there is also a new hidden menu option that lets you easily create updates to your plan. To get to this new menu option, you need to hold Shift while clicking on the main Paratext menu, then click on Paratext > Support and development > Base project plans. This will show a blank project plan dialog where you can load your previous plan by clicking on Manage Plans. You can then edit the plan and then save it as an update which you can then distribute.
(Sorry creating updates is a little awkward to do, but it was quickly thrown together using existing code to help only the few people that manage the base plans)

If you don’t use 9.1 to make an update, then there are some important things to consider when creating an update to a plan:

1. The ID of the plan must be the same (i.e. the GUID in the <PlanId> element in the file).
2. Make sure that the IDs of the stages, tasks, and checks are the same. If the IDs change, Paratext will consider them different and will not migrate existing progress data.

Answer 2

Below is some information taken from a help topic about this in Paratext, called “How do I update the project plan for my project?”

Paratext should know what plan a current plan is based on. When an update becomes available you should be notified and be given three options:

• Keep only tasks with recorded progress (#)
• Keep all tasks that are not in the new version (#)
• Remove all tasks that are not in the new version (#)
  The number in parentheses gives the number of tasks that will be affected by your choice.
  The tasks that will be kept or removed (according to the option selected) are shown below the options.

Answer 3

Thank you both.

@anon291708, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I worked out how to make a Base Plan, but I couldn’t work out how to make updates to Base Plans. I’ll try that and post here if I get stuck.

Answer 4

By the way - here is a link to PT9.1 videos that were made early in the Alpha stage to help with some new features. There are a couple of videos on updating plans.

What's New In Paratext 9.1

What's New In Paratext 9.1

Here are some demo videos to introduce the new features that have been added to Paratext 9.1. Please note that this is still Alpha software so there may be some…