A blank canvas is freeing, but a meeting needs a place: rooms to walk into, a table to sit round, somewhere for everyone to arrive. Templates give you a ready-made Space as a starting point, so you can begin from somewhere shaped roughly like your team and adapt it, instead of building every room from nothing.
Starting from a Template
When you create a new space, the space is made there and then, saved where new spaces go (see Default Folders). The empty tab then opens on Start a Space: its Recommended templates first, then the catalogue beside them, with a search. Click a template and the tab fills with it; from there it is an ordinary canvas, to move, edit, add to and delete from as on any canvas.
Every new tab, and every tab you empty, offers the same start. Close it with its × to begin from a blank canvas; while the tab is still empty, Show Templates in the strip under the palette brings it back.
What's in the Catalogue
The catalogue is five templates: Blank Space and four ready-made Spaces, all in the Virtual Spaces category.
| Template | What it is |
|---|---|
| Blank Space | An empty space to meet in: build a room, leave a note, run a timer or a vote |
| Virtual Office | A reception, desks, a meeting room, a kitchen with coffee, a lounge and a focus room |
| Coworking Space | An open floor: hot desks, two phone booths, a coffee bar and a lounge |
| Team Pod | A small team's corner: four desks together, a table for the stand-up and a team board |
| All-Hands Hall | A hall for town halls and demos: a stage, rows of seats facing it and Bring Focus |
Every one of the four Spaces is made to walk round in Avatar mode.
Find a template finds a template by its name, its description, its category, or the everyday words people use for it: try "office", "desk" or "all hands". Every word you type has to match.
Blank Space leads the Popular shelf, apart from the categories since starting from nothing is not a kind of Space: an empty tab to furnish yourself, with the timer, the quick vote and Bring Focus to hand (see Session Tools). After it, Popular shows the Spaces most people start from.
Each template arrives as real elements rather than a picture: a room's walls, a table's chairs and the sticky notes on the wall are elements you drag, and a Walk In button takes everyone into the Space as an avatar. Nothing in a template is locked or special.
Changing the Theme
A new space starts on the Default theme, and a template picked on a start takes the tab's current theme. Once you are on the canvas, click the Theme & canvas button in the bottom-right corner to open the Tab Style dialog and try a different theme: it recolours the whole template at once.
Making It Your Own
A template is just a head start, not a constraint. Everything in it is fully editable: add rooms and furniture from the palette's Navigate category, move the walls, restyle the whole thing with a different theme, or strip out the parts you do not need. Because the canvas works the same as any other, you can also add tabs, invite others, and share it once you have shaped it into what you want.
Templates pair naturally with themes: pick a Space that fits your team, then try a few themes from the Tab Style dialog to find the look you want. Double-click a theme to apply it and close the dialog in one go.
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