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Saving & importing

Projects

A project holds all plates, fields, colors, layers, figure style and export settings in one .platemap file (readable JSON).

Action How
Save File → Save project (Ctrl+S)
Save under a new name File → Save project as… (Ctrl+Shift+S)
Open File → Open project… (Ctrl+O), or double-click a .platemap file
New File → New project… (Ctrl+N)

A ● next to the project name in the title bar means there are unsaved changes.

Autosave

The app saves your work in the background after every edit. If it closes unexpectedly, choose Continue last session on the start screen to pick up where you left off.

Tip

Autosave covers crashes and accidental closes. Still save .platemap files to share projects or keep versions.

Importing tables

File → Import table / platemap (CSV/TSV)… reads a well-by-well table and adds it as new plate(s). It understands:

  • pycytominer platemaps: WellRow, WellCol, well_position, …
  • This app's CSV export: plate, well, row, column, …
  • Exports from the old Streamlit plate map tool, including *_color columns (colors are kept) and *_units columns.
  • Any table with a well (A1 or A01) or well_position column, or WellRow + WellCol.

What happens on import:

  1. Plates: a plate / plate_map_name column splits rows into plates. Without one, the file name becomes the plate name (platemap_NF1_plate19.csv → plate NF1_plate19).
  2. Format: the smallest standard format that fits the wells is chosen.
  3. Columns are matched to existing fields by export name, field name or common synonyms (celltype → Cell line, treatment → Compound, concentration/dose → Concentration…). Unknown columns become new fields that keep the exact header.
  4. Values with units (10ng/ml, 1uM) are split into number and unit.
  5. Vehicle, compound class and treatment group mappings are learned from the file, ready for auto-fill.
  6. For pycytominer platemaps, the header becomes the export template, so exporting gives back exactly the same columns.

See the worked example: Bringing in existing platemaps.

Exporting data

Menu item Output
Export platemap (pycytominer)… Your exact column layout, one file per plate, plus barcode_platemap.csv. See Platemap export
Export data: CSV (all wells) One row per well on every plate, including empty wells
Export data: CSV (filled wells) Same, only wells with data
Export figure… PDF / SVG / PNG. See Figure export