A real web app at your own address: accounts, a database, and cards that save. It is responsive, so it works on the phone you will actually be holding. You can restyle every pixel of it like any other design.
SPRING
BREAK!
Four friends, one week, zero agreement on where to go. Here is how a trip gets voted on, planned, hyped, filmed and posted home, all from one app, using templates you can open today.
The Wayfarer template in Design: a trip planner that becomes a working app when it is published with a database. The camera starts on its Welcome page, then moves to the Board, where each place is a boarding-pass card in one of three columns: dreaming, booked and been.
SPLASH!
THE EXAMPLE TRIP
Lisbon or bust (a made-up but very real group chat)
Meet Ana, Dev, Priya and Sam. They are an example, not customers, but you know them. Ana has a spreadsheet. Dev has opinions. Priya has a budget. Sam has already sent nine TikToks of a beach in Portugal. They have six weeks until the break, a group chat with 412 unread messages and no plan.
What follows is how their week away goes from a pile of links to a printed postcard on Grandma's fridge, one step at a time. Each step uses a real PopCraft template and a few features working together. Where a feature has its own page, we link to it rather than repeat it. This page is about the trip.
4
friends, one shared board
3
columns: dreaming, booked, been
15
scenes in the travel film
1
postcard, actually posted
STEP 1 · SIX WEEKS OUT
Settle it with dots, not volume
Every group trip starts with the same argument. Ana wants Lisbon, Dev wants Berlin, Priya wants anywhere under £300, and Sam wants the beach from the TikToks (it is in Lisbon, which Sam does not know yet).
Ana opens the Dot voting board template, writes each city on a sticky, and drops the link in the chat. Everyone gets the same number of dots. The board shows the totals as they land. Lisbon wins, Dev stamps a big No on it, and that is fine: stamps are a feature. The vote takes four minutes instead of four days.
A retro board in PopCorn, with stickies in three columns. Voting opens its panel and Start voting gives three votes. Three stickies are clicked, each gaining a vote badge, and End voting shows the results.
A brainstorm board in PopCorn. S picks the sticky tool; a click drops a sticky note, and “Launch in spring” is typed on it. A second sticky goes beside it.
STEP 2 · THE PLAN
One board everyone can see
Next, the Kanban board, its columns renamed to book, booked and packed. Flights, the flat, the airport train, the surf lesson Sam swears they will do. Each is a sticky. Whoever books something drags it across. Nobody has to ask "did anyone book the flat?" again, because the board answers.
It is a normal PopCraft file, so friends join by link and work on it live, with a cursor each and threaded comments right on the board. When the planning call starts to drift into restaurant debates, the board's timer gives everyone ten minutes and then rings.
A retro board in PopCorn. Timer on the toolbar opens the countdown, +1 min twice sets seven minutes, and Start runs it. In a live file everyone sees the same countdown and hears one chime at zero.
STEP 3 · YOUR OWN PLANNER
Wayfarer: a trip board that is really an app
Priya wants more than this one trip. She wants a list of every place she might ever go, which she can open on her phone in a queue. That is Wayfarer, a template that is a working app once it is published.
It has a welcome page, sign-up and sign-in, a password reset, an account page, and the board itself. Places sit in three columns, dreaming, booked and been, as boarding-pass cards coloured by the kind of trip: city, coast, mountains or road trip. A tap on a card's button moves it along.
To make it live, Priya clicks Publish, picks an address, and under Database clicks New Neon database. Sign-in is turned on with it. Each person who signs up gets their own board, kept in her database, not ours.
The Wayfarer template in Design: a trip planner that becomes a working app when it is published with a database. The camera starts on its Welcome page, then moves to the Board, where each place is a boarding-pass card in one of three columns: dreaming, booked and been.
HONEST BIT
What Wayfarer is, and what it is not
IT IS NOT
NOPE!A shared group board (each visitor sees only their own cards), a booking site, or a price tracker. It does not know what flights cost. It knows that you wrote "Lisbon, May, booked", and it remembers.
STEP 4 · THE HYPE
Spring cards for the group chat
The trip is booked. This is the most important part of any holiday: telling the group chat about it repeatedly.
PopCraft has hundreds of GIF cards, each a four-second loop at 480×480. For this trip there are three ways to say Happy first day of spring (minimal, paper cut and watercolour), three for the first day of summer, three Beach day cards ("Vitamin sea" is in there, sorry), and three Bon voyage cards for the morning of the flight.
Open one, change the words if you want ("Spring has sprung, and so have we"), and export it as a GIF from the transport bar. It loops forever and drops into WhatsApp, iMessage or Slack like any other GIF.
The Spring has sprung card in its Paper cut theme, open in Animate and zoomed on the 480 by 480 card. Space plays its four-second loop for the group chat.
The Love you more card in its Doodle theme, in Animate. The export button in the transport bar opens Export animation; GIF is picked as the format, showing its shared palette, dither and loop forever settings and the summary of the size, frame count and estimated file size.
STEP 5 · A PLANE ON THE PAGE
A flight route for the trip page
Dev, still sulking about Berlin, decides to make the trip page. He wants a plane on it. Of course he does.
The Flight route template is a five-second loop at 1600×900: a plane flies an arc between two places, the dotted route lights up behind it, and the destination pin pops as it lands. It is built to export as Lottie, the small animation format websites and apps play, so it stays sharp at any size. There is a matching Location pin drop for a smaller spot.
Put it on a page, or export it as a GIF or MP4 for the chat. The map is a stylised one, two blobs of land and some clouds, so it suits any destination. It will not show the real coastline of Portugal, and Dev will be fine.
The Flight route Lottie template in Animate, zoomed on its 1600 by 900 frame. Space plays the five-second loop: a plane flies an arc between two places, lighting the dotted route behind it, and the destination pin pops as it lands.
STEP 6 · HOME AGAIN
Turn 400 photos into a film
A week later the camera roll is a crime scene. The Travel diary slideshow fixes that. It is a film in three chapters (the cities, the roads, the water), fifteen scenes cut on the beats of "Open Road", a plucked guitar track made by PopCraft and released CC0. It has a title card, captions with the place under each, slow Ken Burns drifts, pushes and slides between scenes, and a closing card.
Drop your own photos on the frames, retype the captions ("Lost, happily, in Alfama"), change the names and dates on the title card, and press Present to watch it. Then export an MP4 with the music, ready for a story or the family chat. If the photos are too dark, the stock photo search has some help, but honestly, just use yours.
The travel photo slideshow template, a composition of photo scenes cut to one of PopCraft's own songs. Present fills the screen and the scenes play in order with their transitions; K pauses and resumes, and Esc ends the show.
A logo reveal in Animate. The download button in the transport bar opens Export animation. MP4 shows frame rate, range, resolution and quality with a summary of the size; GIF switches to palette, dither and loop settings; Lottie lists what the file can carry. The frame rate is set to 120 fps for MP4.
STEP 7 · OLD SCHOOL
A postcard that arrives by post
Here is a move that beats any story: send Grandma a real postcard. Open the Postcard template (4×6 inches; there is a 5×7 one too), fill the front with your favourite photo, and write the back.
It is a print file, so it has a trim line, a bleed and a safe margin. Stretch the photo out past the trim to the bleed line, so a slightly wonky cut does not leave a white edge. Press ⌘P to print it at home, or export a PDF for a print shop. Preflight will tell you if the photo is too small to print sharp before you waste the card stock.
PACKING LIST
Everything this trip makes
Seven things, seven templates. Tick them off as you go. Each tag opens the page that goes deeper on the feature behind it.
☐ PACKED? #1
Where are we going? (a vote)
Starts from: Dot voting board →
☐ PACKED? #2
The plan everyone can see
Starts from: Kanban board →
☐ PACKED? #3
My own trip list
Starts from: Wayfarer, a trip board with accounts →
☐ PACKED? #4
"Spring has sprung!" for the chat
Starts from: First day of spring GIF cards →
☐ PACKED? #5
A plane on the trip page
Starts from: Flight route Lottie →
☐ PACKED? #6
The film of the trip
Starts from: Travel diary slideshow →
☐ PACKED? #7
A card for Grandma
Starts from: Postcard (4×6) →
THE OLD WAY
Six apps and a spreadsheet
| THE OLD WAY | IN POPCRAFT |
|---|---|
| A poll in the group chat that nobody closes | A dot-voting board: everyone votes, the totals are on the board |
| A spreadsheet only Ana understands | A kanban board everyone edits live, with a cursor each |
| A notes app list of places you never look at | Wayfarer, published as your own small app |
| A GIF search that finds the same three GIFs | Hundreds of GIF cards, with your own words on them |
| A video app that picks the music for you | A travel film already cut to a CC0 song, exported as MP4 |
| A postcard from the airport shop | Your own photo on a 4×6 print file with bleed |
FROM ZERO
Your trip in six moves
- 1
Vote on the place
Open the Dot voting board, put each city on a sticky, share the link, and let everyone spend their dots. The loudest friend no longer wins by default. See boards. - 2
Plan it together
Move the winner to a Kanban board: to book, booked, packed. Everyone edits the same board at once, with their own cursor, as in multiplayer. - 3
Keep your own list
Want a planner that outlives this trip? Publish Wayfarer with a database and it is a small app with sign-up, at your own address. Publishing covers how. - 4
Hype the chat
Send Spring has sprung! as a GIF, then Bon voyage on the morning you fly. GIF cards export in a click. - 5
Film the trip
Back home, drop your photos on Travel diary slideshow. It is already cut to a song. Export an MP4 with the motion studio. - 6
Post the postcard
Put the best photo on the Postcard template, write the back, and print it. Print and PDF handles bleed.
WORTH KNOWING
Before you pack
SPRING SALES
BLOOM!Running a spring or summer sale instead of a trip? The Spring bloom and Summer heatwave sets have a landing page, a link preview, an email header and a reel each. They are written for a software product; change the words.
YOUR PHOTOS
SNAP!Drop a photo onto any frame in the slideshow or the postcard and it fills it. The sample photos are CC0, so a film you post before swapping them all is still fine to share.
PHONE OR LAPTOP
ZOOM!Boards and published sites work in the browser, on any device. Making the film is happiest on a laptop: a fifteen-scene timeline on a phone is nobody's idea of a holiday.
BEFORE THE NEXT TRIP
Start with the vote
In PopCraft, click New file, search for dot voting, and share the board before anyone books anything. Running a hotel instead of staying in one? Hotels & Travel is your page. Posting the trip everywhere? Social Media has the rest.
ASKED & ANSWERED
Questions, answered
Can my friends edit the plan without paying?
Boards are shared like any PopCraft file: invite people and they work on the same board at once, with live cursors. What a free account can do depends on the plan, so check the pricing page before you count on six editors.
Is Wayfarer shared between friends?
No, and on purpose. Each visitor who signs up gets their own board: their places, their columns. For one plan that the whole group edits, use a board file. For a shared sign-up list, the Potluck template shows how a site can share records between everyone.
Do I need to know how to make websites?
No. Wayfarer is a finished template. You publish it, attach a database in the Publish dialog (it can make a Neon database for you), and it runs. You need a PopCraft account to publish.
Whose music is on the travel slideshow?
The track, "Open Road", was made by PopCraft and is CC0, so you can post the film anywhere. The sample photos are CC0 from Wikimedia Commons. Swap in your own photos, and your own song if you have the rights to it.
Can PopCraft book flights or hotels?
No. PopCraft makes the plan, the page, the cards and the film. Booking happens wherever you book. The flight route animation is a picture of a flight, not a flight.
What about the spring and summer landing pages?
The Spring bloom and Summer heatwave landing pages are written as seasonal campaign pages for a software product, not as trip pages. Their art is lovely and theirs to borrow, but the words are about a product. Use them if you are running a spring sale; for a trip, Wayfarer is the better start.
THE MANUAL, FOR THE DETAILS
KEEP EXPLORING
Goes great with
SPLASH! YOUR TURN.
Trip plans, travel reels and sunny posts, start to postcard. Free to start, in your browser or on your Mac.