PowerPlanner

Calendar-true Gantt charts you can actually present.

PowerPlanner is a presentation-grade Gantt chart authoring tool — task bars, milestones, brackets, dependency arrows, critical path highlighting, baseline drift tracking, today line, percent-complete fills — with every element directly editable by dragging, typing, or via a Linear-style Cmd+K command palette.

It ships as a single-file portable HTML app — no install, no account, no server. Open the file in any modern browser and start planning. Press Ctrl+S to save; your chart is embedded back into the same HTML file.

Gallery

Web app

The single-file web app — switch time scales (week → month → quarter → year → fit), edit dates by dragging, and export.

PowerPoint add-in (native, on-slide editor)

A native C++ COM add-in (think-cell style) that emits the chart as real, editable PowerPoint shapes — not an image — and turns the slide itself into the editor: an input-capturing overlay with its own selection model, drag gestures, scoped keyboard shortcuts, context menus, and a docked contextual app bar.

Hero card — task selected with full app bar:

Full-context cards for every selection context and feature:

Row selected	Milestone selected	Marker selected
Document settings	Settings popover	Dependency link
Multi-select	Context menu	Task detail card

Every gesture and command is one undo entry, every command also lives in the right-click menus (derived from the same command registry as the app bar), and dragging a bar reflows dates with dependencies and the embedded data kept in sync:

Build the DLL and test it in PowerPoint on any 64-bit-Office PC — see docs/native-addin-install.md (prebuilt DLL + register.bat, no admin or Visual Studio needed to register).

Get started

1. Download PowerPlanner.html from the latest release.
2. Open it in any browser (Chrome / Edge / Safari / Firefox).
3. Start editing.
4. Press Ctrl+S to save back to the HTML file.
5. Email or share the file. Recipients get a fully editable copy with no install.

What's inside

Direct manipulation

• Click anywhere with the Task tool (T) to add a task at that date and row
• Drag bars to move dates; drag edges to resize; drag from edge handles to wire dependencies
• Type dates in the inspector — the bar moves
• F2 or double-click to rename inline
• Right-click anything — context menu for everything
• Marquee select (R), multi-select with Shift+click

Linear-style command palette

• ⌘K (or Ctrl+K) opens a fuzzy-searchable palette
• Every action available: create, switch tools, change scale, toggle views, switch theme, save, open, all exports, load templates
• Arrow-key navigation, Enter to run

Templates

Start fast with built-in starters: Product Launch, Two-Week Sprint, Hiring Plan, Marketing Campaign, or Blank.

Pro features

• Critical Path Method — toggle on to highlight tasks with zero float in red
• Baselines — capture a snapshot of your schedule, then visualize drift as you replan
• Minimap — compact overview rail at the bottom of the chart; click to pan

Calendar

• Day / Week / Month / Quarter / Year scales (switch with the bottom toolbar or ⇧D/⇧W/⇧M/⇧Q/⇧Y)
• Custom fiscal-year start month
• Weekend shading and working-day calendar
• Today line with a TODAY pill label that updates automatically

Persistence & export

• Save embedded HTML — Ctrl+S embeds the chart JSON into the file itself
• Auto-save to localStorage every second (with a non-blocking restore banner on next launch)
• Export PNG (1× or 2×), SVG, JSON, YAML; print to PDF
• Open any prior .html, .json, or .yaml via file picker or drag-drop

Themes

Light by default, with Dark and Print (high-contrast for paper-quality output) available from the theme switcher.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
⌘K / Ctrl+K	Open command palette
?	Open shortcuts overlay
V / T / Y / R / H	Select / Task / Milestone / Marquee / Pan tools
⇧D/⇧W/⇧M/⇧Q/⇧Y	Day / Week / Month / Quarter / Year scale
N / M / B	Quick-add task / milestone / bracket
F2 / dbl-click	Rename selected task
←/→	Nudge by 1 day (Shift = 7 days)
Del	Delete selection
+ / −	Zoom in / out
Home	Fit to data
S	Toggle snap-to-scale
Esc	Clear selection / revert to Select tool
⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z	Undo / Redo
⌘S	Save (embeds chart in HTML)
Wheel	Zoom at cursor
Shift+wheel	Pan horizontally

How it works

Each PowerPlanner file is a standalone HTML application. When you save, the chart is serialized to JSON and embedded inside a <script type="application/json" id="powerplanner-data"> tag in the same HTML file. Reopen the file to continue editing. The renderer is pure SVG, so PNG/SVG/PDF exports are crisp at any resolution.

Roadmap

PowerPlanner is built so the same engine powers multiple surfaces:

• ✅ Portable HTML — this release
• 🟡 Web app — hosted edition with accounts and sharing
• 🟡 PowerNote node — embeddable Gantt node inside PowerNote
• 🟡 PowerPoint add-in — Office.js task pane that emits native, vector-editable shapes

See PLAN.md for the full roadmap and PRD.md for product details.

Development

npm install
npm run addin:certs      # Trust the localhost dev certificate (run once per machine)
npm run dev              # Dev server at http://localhost:5180
npm run dev:addin        # HTTPS dev server for PowerPoint sideload (port 5180)
npm run build:template   # Build standalone PowerPlanner.html → dist-template/
npm test                 # Unit tests (vitest)
npm run test:e2e         # Playwright E2E tests

Agent guidance for Codex, Claude, and other coding assistants lives in AGENTS.md. CLAUDE.md delegates to the same shared instructions.

Stack

React 19 + TypeScript + Vite + SVG renderer + Zustand. Single-file build via vite-plugin-singlefile. Around 270 KB total (82 KB gzipped). 38 unit tests + 4 E2E tests, all passing.

License

MIT.