User Guide

1. Getting Started

Create an account or log in at wipsmithapp.com. Once you're signed in, you'll land on your Dashboard where you can see your collection at a glance.

Quick Start Wizard

With an empty collection, your dashboard shows a welcome card with Add Your First Miniature and a collapsible Show me around first tour. You can add items individually using the Getting Started checklist. As you build your collection, contextual tips suggest features you haven't tried yet.

Prefer to set things up together? Open Welcome and choose Launch Quick Start Wizard. Quick Start creates your first miniature, with an optional army, paint recipe, and tutorial link. After saving, it opens that miniature's detail page; a dashboard reminder then suggests adding your first paint log.

Quick actions

When you're signed in, the floating + button in the bottom-right opens quick links to Add Miniature, Add Recipe, and Add Army. It is available across the main app and hides on add/edit pages so it stays out of the way while you fill in forms. Recipe and army links follow your Feature Preferences.

2. Dashboard

Your dashboard is the central hub. It shows everything happening with your collection at a glance.

• Collection status donut — the total miniature count sits in the centre, with a colour-coded breakdown in workflow order: Wishlist → Bought → Unpainted → In Progress → Completed
• Painting time — total hours logged, with weekly and monthly breakdowns and your completion rate
• Weekly painting chart — a bar chart of how many minutes you painted each day over the past week, so you can spot your most productive sessions at a glance
• Active Goals summary — your in-progress painting goals with progress bars showing how close you are to each target. Click any goal to go to the Goals page for full details.
• Goal deadline warnings — a red banner appears at the top of the dashboard for any overdue goals, and a yellow banner for goals with a deadline within the next 7 days, so nothing sneaks up on you
• Recent activity timeline — collection updates and painting sessions with relative timestamps such as "2 hours ago"; click an entry to return to the related item
• Army progress — progress bars show completed miniatures out of the total for each army, with painted/total counts
• Painting streak — your consecutive days with a logged painting session, or a prompt to start your streak
• Getting Started checklist — checks off your first army, miniature, recipe, and tutorial, with a separate link to download a backup. It appears while one of those collection types is still empty.

3. Miniatures

The heart of WIP Smith. Track every model in your collection from box to display cabinet.

Adding a miniature

1. Click My Miniatures in the navigation bar
2. Click the Add Miniature button
3. Fill in the name, manufacturer, and description
4. Choose a status: Wishlist, Bought, Unpainted, In Progress, or Completed
5. Assign it to an army (optional)
6. Save — you'll see it appear in your collection

Miniature details page

Click any miniature to open its detail page where you can:

• Edit the name, status, manufacturer, description, or army
• Log painting sessions — add notes about what you worked on and how long it took
• Link paint recipes — connect the recipes you used on this model
• View your paint log timeline — a chronological record of every session

Changing status

The workflow is Wishlist → Bought → Unpainted → In Progress → Completed. Wishlist means you want the model but don't own it yet. Bought means you own it, still boxed or on the sprue, not yet assembled or primed. Unpainted means assembled and ready to paint; In Progress is being painted, and Completed is finished.

You can update a miniature's status at any time from the detail page or directly from the dashboard. When you mark a miniature as Completed, a completion date is recorded and you'll see a celebration animation.

Painting Timer

Each miniature detail page has a built-in stopwatch so you can time your painting sessions without leaving the app.

• Start — press Start Timer to begin counting. A live badge pulses in the card header so you always know it's running.
• Stop & Log — press Stop & Log to save the elapsed time directly to this miniature's paint log, with an optional note
• Discard — press Discard to reset the timer without saving
• Persists on refresh — if you reload the page mid-session, the timer picks up exactly where it left off

Bulk CSV Import

Got a spreadsheet of miniatures? Open Import from CSV from the navigation menu or Miniatures page, then choose the Miniatures importer. The same page also has separate importers for Armies, Paint Recipes, and Tutorials.

• Download a template — use the template download beside your chosen importer. Each template has the correct headers and example rows; replace the examples with your own data. The column reference explains required and optional fields.
• Miniature columns — Name, Army, Status, Manufacturer, Quantity, Date Added, Completion Date, Description, in that order. Only Name is required. Quantity is optional: leave it blank or enter a whole number of 1 or more. It describes a squad but never changes entry counts, statistics, progress or goals. Headers ignore case and treat spaces, underscores and hyphens alike, so older snake_case templates still work. Use one of the five workflow statuses.
• Dates — exports and template examples use YYYY-MM-DD. DD/MM/YYYY, DD-MM-YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY are also accepted; day-first takes priority for ambiguous dates. Excel and Google Sheets may rewrite dates to DD/MM/YYYY on save, which is handled.
• Preview before saving — upload your CSV to see a row-by-row preview. Rows with errors are flagged and skipped; nothing is saved until you select Confirm Import. You can cancel instead and correct the file.
• Automatic army creation — miniature imports match named armies in your collection. New names are shown in the preview and those armies are created when you confirm.
• 1,000-row and 2 MB limits — each upload allows up to 1,000 nonblank data rows and a file no larger than 2 MB. Split larger collections into smaller files.

Bulk Actions

On the Miniatures page you can select multiple miniatures using the checkboxes and then apply an action to all of them at once:

• Change status — choose Wishlist, Bought, Unpainted, In Progress, or Completed for a batch of miniatures in one click
• Assign to army — add a group of miniatures to an army at once
• Delete — remove multiple miniatures in a single action (you'll be asked to confirm)

4. Kanban Board

The Board gives you a visual, drag-and-drop view of your entire collection organised by painting status. Access it from the Board link in the navigation menu.

• Drag to change status — drag any miniature card between the five columns — Wishlist, Bought, Unpainted, In Progress, Completed — to save its new status
• Filter by army — use the army dropdown at the top to focus the board on a single faction or project
• Theme aware — the board respects your dark / light mode preference and looks great in both

5. Armies

Armies let you group miniatures into logical collections, for example by game system, faction, or project.

Creating an army

1. Go to Armies from the navigation bar
2. Click Add Army
3. Enter the army name, faction, game system, and an optional description
4. Save — you can now assign miniatures to this army

• View miniatures — each army card shows a count of its miniatures
• Painting progress — each army card shows painted/total counts and a completion progress bar
• Sort your armies — choose Name (A–Z), Name (Z–A), Newest first, Oldest first, Most miniatures, Fewest miniatures, Most complete, or Least complete. Name (A–Z) is the default.
• Filter by game system — narrow the list to one game system, or choose All game systems. Sorting and filtering work together and stay selected as you move between pages.
• Export to PDF — generate a formatted PDF of the army and its miniatures
• Edit or delete — rename, change details, or remove armies you no longer need
• Pagination — armies are shown 24 per page with previous / next navigation if you have a large number of factions

6. Paint Recipes

Record the paints and techniques you use so you can replicate results across your collection.

Creating a recipe

1. Go to Paint Recipes from the navigation bar
2. Click Add Recipe
3. Enter a name, technique (e.g. drybrush, layering, contrast), colours used, and a description
4. Save your recipe

What you can do with recipes

Click a recipe's name or View button to open its full detail page. You'll see all the recorded colours, technique and description, linked tutorials, and the miniatures that use the recipe, with links to those models.

• Link to miniatures — see which models use this colour scheme
• Link to tutorials — connect YouTube videos or guides that helped you learn the technique
• Export to PDF — generate a printable reference of all your recipes
• Pagination — recipes are shown 24 per page with previous / next navigation

7. Tutorials

Save links to painting tutorials, YouTube videos, and guides you want to refer back to.

• Title & URL — save the link with a descriptive name
• Category — organise by topic such as "Skin Tones", "Metallics", "Basing", etc.
• Description — add your own notes about what the tutorial covers
• Link to recipes — connect tutorials to the paint recipes they support
• Pagination — tutorials are shown 24 per page with previous / next navigation

8. Goals

Set painting targets and track your progress over time. Goals let you commit to finishing a set number of miniatures by a deadline — great for event prep or hobby challenges.

Creating a goal

1. Go to Goals from the navigation bar
2. Click Add Goal
3. Enter a title (e.g. "Finish my Space Marines by June")
4. Set a target count and choose which painting status counts towards it: Unpainted, In Progress, or Completed. Wishlist and Bought are not valid goal targets and do not count towards these painting goals.
5. Optionally filter by a specific army and set a deadline date
6. Save — the goal immediately starts tracking your current progress

• Progress bar — each goal shows how many miniatures currently match the criteria vs. the target, with a visual progress bar
• Dashboard integration — active goals appear on your dashboard with progress bars so you can check in at a glance
• Deadline warnings — goals with a deadline appear as coloured banners on the dashboard: red if overdue, yellow if due within 7 days
• Army filter — scope a goal to a specific army so you can track individual project deadlines separately

9. Stats & Analytics

The Stats page gives you a full picture of your painting habits and output. Everything shown is personal to your account — no one else can see your stats.

Summary cards

• Total painting time — the sum of all time logged across every miniature and session
• Average time per miniature — total time divided by completed miniatures, so you know how long your projects really take
• Total completed — how many miniatures you've finished
• Current weekly streak — consecutive weeks with logged painting time. This is different from the daily streak on the dashboard.

Charts

• Weekly painting time — a bar chart of minutes painted per week over the last 12 weeks
• Cumulative completion — a timeline showing how your completed miniature count has grown over time
• Status breakdown — a doughnut chart showing all five statuses in order: Wishlist, Bought, Unpainted, In Progress, and Completed across your whole collection

Tables

• Top 5 most-painted miniatures — ranked by total time logged, so you can see which models have had the most attention
• Recent completions — the last few miniatures you finished, with completion dates

10. Activity Feed

The Activity page shows a chronological feed of everything you've done in WIP Smith: miniatures added, recipes created, paint sessions logged, and tutorials saved. It's a quick way to see your recent progress and jump back to items you were working on.

11. Linking Items Together

One of the most useful features in WIP Smith is linking items together to build connections between your collection.

• Recipes ↔ Miniatures — link a paint recipe to the miniatures you used it on. You'll see badge links on both the recipe and miniature detail pages.
• Recipes ↔ Tutorials — connect a tutorial to the recipe it helped you create. Great for remembering where you learnt a technique.

12. Search

When you're signed in, click Search in the top navigation or mobile menu, or press Cmd + K on Mac / Ctrl + K on Windows or Linux. This opens the collection search overlay; / opens the same overlay when you aren't typing in a form.

Type at least two characters to search miniature names, recipe names, and army names. Results are grouped into Miniatures, Paint Recipes, and Armies, with up to five matches per group. This overlay does not search tutorials.

Use ↑ / ↓ to move through results and Enter to open the highlighted item, or click a result. Press Escape or click outside the search panel to close it.

13. Keyboard Shortcuts

WIP Smith includes keyboard shortcuts for signed-in users. The single-key shortcuts and the start of a g sequence only activate outside form fields. Cmd / Ctrl + K can also open search while you're typing.

• ? — open the shortcuts help overlay to see all available shortcuts at any time
• Cmd + K / Ctrl + K — open collection search
• / — open the same search overlay when you aren't typing
• n — go to the Add Miniature page
• g then d — go to Dashboard
• g then m — go to My Miniatures
• g then r — go to Paint Recipes
• g then a — go to Armies

14. Export & Backup

CSV Export

Use Export CSV on Miniatures, Armies, Paint Recipes, or Tutorials to download a spreadsheet-compatible file. Each export starts with the same Title Case headers, in the same order, as its import template. Miniatures exports begin with Name, Army, Status, Manufacturer, Quantity, Date Added, Completion Date, Description, followed by the read-only Game System, Faction, Paint Recipes, and Total Time (minutes) columns. Blank quantities remain blank. Current status or army filters are applied to miniature exports.

Edit supported fields in an export, or download a template from Import from CSV, then upload and review the preview before confirming — see Section 3 — Bulk CSV Import. The preview lists ignored columns. Export-only columns are not restored by CSV import, and importing adds records rather than updating existing ones.

PDF Export

Generate professional PDF documents of your collection. You can export:

• Miniatures — a table of all your miniatures with status, army, and dates
• Paint Recipes — all recipes with colours and techniques
• Armies — each army with its miniature count and details
• My Collection — everything combined in a single PDF

Backup & Restore

Keep your data safe with JSON backup files.

1. Go to Backup & Restore (in the footer Settings section or mobile menu)
2. Click Download Backup to save a .json file with all your data
3. To restore, upload a backup file on the same page — data will be added alongside your existing collection

15. Dark / Light Mode

WIP Smith defaults to dark mode. To switch themes, use either of these controls:

• Hamburger menu — open the navigation menu (top right) and tap the theme toggle button near the bottom of the menu
• Footer — scroll to the footer and click the Light Mode / Dark Mode toggle button in the Settings section

Your preference is saved and remembered across sessions. The Kanban board, all charts, and every page respect the chosen theme.

16. Feature Preferences

You can choose which features are active in your workspace. If you only use WIP Smith to track miniatures and don't need recipes or the Kanban board, simply turn those features off to keep things clean.

How to manage features

1. Open the navigation menu or footer Account section and go to Account Settings
2. Find the Features card and click Manage Features
3. Use the toggle switches to turn features on or off
4. Click Save Preferences

• Paint Recipes — the Recipes section and all recipe links
• Tutorials — the Tutorials section
• Goals — the Goals section and dashboard goal widgets
• Armies — the Armies section and army filter on the Miniatures page
• Board (Kanban) — the drag-and-drop Kanban board
• Stats & Analytics — the Stats page
• Painting Timer — the stopwatch on miniature detail pages
• CSV Import — the Import from CSV page, templates, previews, and imports for miniatures, armies, recipes, and tutorials

17. Account & Password

Change Password

1. Scroll to the footer and find the Account section
2. Click Change Password
3. Enter your current password
4. Enter and confirm your new password (minimum 6 characters)
5. Click Change Password to save

Forgot Password

1. Go to the Login page
2. Click "Forgot your password?"
3. Enter your email address
4. Check your inbox for a reset link (check spam if it doesn't arrive)
5. Click the link and set a new password

18. Install on Your Phone or Tablet

You can add WIP Smith to your home screen for an app-like shortcut. The mobile interface has larger touch targets, a slide-out navigation menu, and mobile-friendly cards. On phones, swipe horizontally across the Kanban board to reach all five status columns. Browser chrome uses the app's light or dark theme colours where supported; the browser and operating system control how this appears.

The app includes a web app manifest and home-screen icons. Installation options vary by browser; use the menu steps below rather than relying on an automatic prompt. Adding it to your home screen does not make your collection available offline — keep an internet connection when using the app.

Android (Chrome)

1. Open wipsmithapp.com in Chrome
2. Tap the three-dot menu (top right)
3. Select "Add to Home screen"
4. Tap Add to confirm

iPhone / iPad (Safari)

1. Open wipsmithapp.com in Safari
2. Tap the Share icon (square with an arrow pointing up)
3. Scroll down and select "Add to Home Screen"
4. Tap Add

19. Troubleshooting

• Page not found (404)? — Check the URL or head back to the dashboard. You may have followed an old link.
• Missing data? — Try refreshing the page. If data is still missing, restore from your most recent backup.
• Can't log in? — Use the "Forgot your password?" link on the login page to reset. Check your spam folder for the email.
• PDF won't download? — Make sure you have at least one item in the section you're trying to export.
• Feature page redirects to dashboard? — That feature may be turned off in your Feature Preferences. Go to Account Settings → Manage Features to re-enable it.
• Printing a miniature page — use your browser's Print function (Ctrl+P / Cmd+P) on any miniature detail page. Navigation, buttons, and dark backgrounds are automatically hidden for a clean, readable printout.
• Still stuck? — Use the Feedback form (in the navigation or footer) to report a bug, or email help@wipsmith.com