> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.tempoweave.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.tempoweave.com/help-by-menu-tabs/tools-menu/weave-assistant.md).
# Weave Assistant
*Available on Desktop and Mobile. This guide covers the desktop Weave Assistant; the tablet and phone version has its own guide — Weave Assistant (Mobile) — because the touch interface is laid out differently. Weaving progress, treadle mappings, and settings travel inside the `.twa` file, so you can move between desktop and mobile mid-project.*
### What It Does
The Weave Assistant is your at-the-loom companion. It displays your draft pick by pick, showing which shafts to raise for each pick and a real-time cloth preview as you weave. With a **TempoTreadle** **3** on your loom, it advances hands-free — the box senses your actual treadling over Wi-Fi and confirms every shed. If you have a dobby loom (Louet or Leclerc), it can connect directly via USB cable (Louet dobbies use a standard USB Printer cable) and send shaft commands automatically. And with neither, it still works as an on-screen guide — advance through your treadling with a foot pedal or keyboard and follow along visually.
With Weave Assistant and TempoTreadle, you can weave with confidence through life's distractions. Think of it as a scrolling teleprompter for weaving: it keeps your place, shows what's coming next, alerts you to treadling errors, color changes, and lets you focus on the weaving instead of a paper draft.
***
### Opening the Weave Assistant
* **Ribbon**: Tools tab > Dobby group > Weave Assistant button
The Weave Assistant opens as a separate window. Only one instance can be open at a time — if you click the button again, it brings the existing window to the front.
***
### Opening the Weave Assistant
1. Open a draft first (the assistant works on the active draft).
2. Tap **Tools** on the rail (tablet) or the bottom dock (phone).
3. Under **ASSISTANTS**, tap **Weave Assistant…**.
The Weave Assistant opens as a **full-screen panel** over your draft. To close it, tap the **✕** in the top-left corner — your place is kept.
***
### The Weave Assistant Panel
From top to bottom:
* **Top bar** — close (**✕**), the title, **− / + zoom**, a **battery chip** for the TempoTreadle box (when connected and battery-powered), and **⚙ Settings**.
* **Toolbar** — direction, Prev/Next, pick jump, section selector, and the **▾ Options** menu.
* **Treadling panel** (left) — your draft's treadling, scrollable. Hide it (▾ Options menu) for more cloth room.
* **Cloth preview** — the woven cloth so far, pick by pick, right-anchored like the drawdown.
* **Treadles overlay** — a floating card showing exactly which treadles to press now (details below).
***
#### Toolbar
**Forward / Reverse** (pill) **Free Weave** (in the **▾ Options** menu) is for the picks that are not part of the design: waste picks between towels, a header, or a few throws to try treadles. While it is on, the Forward/Reverse pill turns amber and reads **Free Weave**; every shed you close, pedal key or tap still counts on the picks-woven odometer and the Pick Counter, but the pick marker stays put and no treadle is judged wrong. Prev, Next and Go still move the marker. Tap the amber pill, or untick it in the View menu, to resume. It is off every time you open the Weave Assistant.
The weaving direction. **Forward** advances to higher pick numbers; **Reverse** walks backward — use it when unweaving. The pill turns **red** in Reverse so you can't miss it. Flipping direction also repositions you sensibly: switching to Reverse steps back to the last pick you wove; switching to Forward steps ahead to the next unwoven one (wrapping at the section boundaries).
**Prev / Next** Step one pick back or forward without weaving.
**Pick \[ ] / \[total] Go** Type a pick number and tap **Go** to jump anywhere in the treadling. The total pick count is shown beside the field.
**Section** (only when your draft has weft sections) Jump between marked sections of the draft — the pick counter and previews follow.
**▾ Options** (menu) The display toggles, all in one place:
* **Show treadle overlay** (on by default) — the floating Treadles card.
* **Show large treadle overlay** — a preset that enlarges the card to fit your screen, with much larger text and boxes; glanceable from the bench, and the low-vision option. The card only covers what it needs, so the cloth stays visible around it.
* **Show Next & Prev treadle** (on) — the Next-pick / Last-pick preview lines inside the overlay.
* **Show Interlacement** (on) — the interlacement-style cloth rendering.
* **Face Up / Face Down** (Face Up) — which face of the cloth the preview shows. Face Down inverts the yarn on top of each cell, with nothing mirrored.
* **Show color names** (off) — the current pick's yarn line and color name, so similar colors are never a guess.
* **Color change alert** (on) — chime when the next pick uses a different weft.
* **Show treadling panel** (on) — the left panel; turn it off to give the cloth and overlay the full width.
**− / +** (top bar) Zoom the cloth preview and treadling panel.
***
#### The Treadles Overlay
The floating card is the heart of at-the-loom weaving. Drag it anywhere on the cloth area.
* **Pick number + weft color dot** — the pick you're weaving now and the yarn to throw.
* **Treadle boxes** — one box per treadle position:
* **Blue** — press this one (expected for the current pick).
* **Green** — pressed and correct (TempoTreadle connected).
* **Red** — pressed but wrong (TempoTreadle connected).
* **Gray** — not part of this pick.
* **Next ▸ / Last ◂ lines** — one-line previews of the picks ahead and behind, each with its weft color dot and treadle numbers (toggle **Show Next & Prev treadle** in the ▾ Options menu).
**Treadle Mapping and the overlay**
The boxes are laid out in **physical position order** and labeled with the **treadle each position acts as** under your Treadle Mapping:
* With no mapping (or the default 1:1 map), boxes are simply treadles 1…N — nothing changes.
* A position **mapped OFF** draws as an inert **✕** box with no number — or is hidden entirely if you check **Hide OFF treadles** in the mapping dialog.
* A remapped position shows its **mapped number** and lights up when that treadle is expected. So if your foot expects the tabby on the far right, the far-right box says so.
**Show large treadle overlay** (▾ Options menu) is a preset that enlarges the card to fit your screen, with much larger text and boxes — glanceable from the bench, and the low-vision option. An iPad mini, a phone, and a large iPad each get a size that fits.
**Sizing the card yourself.** **Pinch** on the card to make everything in it smaller or larger, or use the **−** and **+** buttons in its corner for a mouse or a hand that can't pinch. The card only covers what it needs, so the cloth stays visible around it; drag it wherever it is least in the way, including over the treadling panel. Your size is remembered on this device; ticking or unticking **Show large treadle overlay** returns to the automatic size. Drag the **grip on the card's right edge** to make it narrower, and the treadle boxes wrap into more rows; double-tap the grip to let the width follow the content again.
***
#### Weaving with TempoTreadle
With a TempoTreadle box on the loom, the assistant senses your actual treadling:
* Press the correct treadle(s) and close the shed — an **OK beep** sounds and the assistant advances by itself.
* Press a wrong treadle — an **error beep** warns you before you throw the pick.
* **Loom type** (Settings → TempoTreadle) tunes the behavior: **Multiple (Floor Loom)**, **Single (Countermarch)**, or **Table Loom** (levers must match the expected shafts exactly, then it advances — no closed shed needed).
Connection lives in **Settings → TempoTreadle**: tap **Set Up TempoTreadle…** for the guided wizard (it searches your network continuously, and can walk the box onto your home Wi-Fi the first time — see the TempoTreadle 3 connection quickstart). Once paired, the address is remembered — and even if you leave setup early, the assistant keeps looking in the background and connects by itself when the box appears. The box's **battery** level shows in the top bar and in Settings, and firmware updates are offered right in the panel when available.
**Tune mode** (Settings → **Tune**) is where you verify the box senses each treadle: the grid is labeled with your treadle numbers — using the **mapped** numbers if you've remapped, with a red **✕** over any position mapped OFF — so what lights up matches what your feet do. Tapping **Done** with a box connected drops you straight into Weave mode, ready to treadle.
**Treadle Mapping…** (in the same section) opens the per-project mapping table: 16 physical positions, each with **Status** (On/Off), **Maps to treadle**, and a per-row **Color Alert** suppressor (turn it off on a tabby treadle so alternating weft colors don't chime every pick). **Reset to 1:1** and **Reverse** presets are at the bottom, along with **Hide OFF treadles in the Treadles overlay**. The mapping is saved in the `.twa`, so it travels with the project.
No TempoTreadle? Everything still works as a visual guide — advance with the toolbar, a keyboard key, or a Bluetooth foot pedal.
**Bigger Next targets (hands-free).** Two options on the **▾ Options** menu, both off until you turn them on:
* **Tap treadle overlay for Next** — a tap anywhere on the floating treadle overlay (except its ✕) advances one pick. Dragging the overlay still moves it.
* **Tap anywhere for Next** — a tap anywhere on the pick display advances one pick. The whole screen becomes the Next button, which is ideal for a phone propped at the loom, so leave it off while you are handling the phone.
Either one also suits iPhone **Voice Control**: record a custom gesture that taps the middle of the screen (or the overlay) once, and you can say its name to advance instead of aiming for the small Next button. A Bluetooth page-turner pedal works too: set its key under **Foot Pedal** in Settings.
***
#### Settings Sheet
Tap **⚙** to open Settings; tap **Done** to close. Each section is a collapsible card:
**Woven Length** A live length tracker and calculator built around two counters:
* **Pick Counter 1** — your primary woven-picks counter (shown bold).
* **Pick Counter 2** — a second, independent counter — use it for a section, a repeat, or "since I last measured."
* **Repeat Counter** — counts each time weaving wraps from the end of the cycle back to its start (the whole piece, or the active marked section). Unweaving across the start un-counts one — it's true completed repeats, never math on pick totals. Editable, with Reset; also shown as "Repeats: N" in the header beside the pick number.
Measure a stretch of actual cloth, enter the **Measured** length, choose which counter feeds the **Picks** value (the dropdown selects Pick Counter 1 or 2), and it computes your **actual beat density** — handy for predicting whether you'll hit your target length.
**TempoTreadle** Loom type, **Set Up TempoTreadle…** wizard, **Connect** / **Tune**, battery readout, auto power-off, firmware updates, and **Treadle Mapping…** — covered above.
**Foot Pedal** Keys (or pedal presses mapped to keys) for **Next pick** (default **Space**) and **Prev pick** (default **Shift+Space**). Tap **Set**, then press the key.
**Sound** Master **volume**, plus four chimes, each with its own **enable** switch, **Test** button, and the option to **Browse…** for your own sound file (or **Reset** to the built-in): the **OK beep** (correct treadle), **error beep** (wrong treadle), **color-change chime** (the next pick uses a different weft), and **end-of-piece chime** (you've wrapped past the last pick).
(The old Display card's toggles moved to the **▾ Options** menu on the toolbar.)
***
### Typical Workflow
1. **Open your draft**, then **Tools → ASSISTANTS → Weave Assistant…**.
2. (TempoTreadle) Tap **⚙ → TempoTreadle → Connect**. First time: **Set Up TempoTreadle…** walks the box onto your Wi-Fi.
3. (Optional) Open **Treadle Mapping…** and match the draft's treadles to where your feet want them; turn Color Alert off on tabby rows.
4. Drag the **Treadles overlay** where you can see it from the bench, and turn on **Show large treadle overlay** (▾ Options) if you want it glanceable, then pinch or use its **−** / **+** to get the size just right.
5. Weave: press the blue treadle, throw the pick, beat — the assistant confirms and advances (or tap / pedal **Next**).
6. Listen for the **color-change chime** and check the **Next ▸** line for what's coming.
7. Check **Woven Length** in Settings as you go; use the calculator against a real measurement.
8. Done for the day? Just close — your pick position, mapping, and progress are saved with the project. Answer **Save** at the prompt and, if the draft came from MyCloud, the cloud copy is updated in the same step.
***
### Box firmware updates
When a newer TempoTreadle firmware is available, a banner appears in the Treadle settings while you're connected: *"Box firmware update available"* with the version and what's new. Make sure the box is charged or plugged in, stop your weave session, and tap **Update** — the app sends the firmware over Wi-Fi, the box verifies and restarts itself, and the app reconnects automatically showing the new version. Your Wi-Fi settings and box name are kept, and an interrupted update never harms the box — it simply keeps its old firmware and you can try again.
### Notes & Tips
* **Progress travels with the file.** Pick position, treadle mapping, and Weave Assistant state round-trip through the `.twa` between mobile and desktop.
* **Your place saves itself.** Every pick advance is written into the draft on your device a moment later, again when you close the assistant, and again when you switch away from the app. Those automatic saves stay local; closing with **Save** is what updates a MyCloud copy. If MyCloud can't be reached at that moment, the draft is still saved on the device and an amber banner reminds you to **Update MyCloud** when you're back online. Opening from MyCloud keeps the place already on this device, as long as the cloud draft itself hasn't changed since.
* **Idle is fine.** The app heartbeats the TempoTreadle box continuously, so the connection stays up while you wind bobbins or step away — no reconnect dance when you sit back down.
* **Number fields bring up the number keypad** — the Pick field and the length-calculator boxes open the numeric soft keyboard.
* **Phone tips**: turn off the treadling panel (**▾ Options** menu) and let the Treadles overlay + Large mode carry the session.
* **Unweaving**: flip **Forward** to **Reverse** (the pill turns red, and your position steps back to the last woven pick) — the same advance actions then walk backward through the treadling.
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