How it works

Everyone in Darwin's Waiting Room keeps their own availability here — a usual week, plus the days that differ — and the app lays it all on top of each other so you can see when the group is free.

Everything else — the group's availability, events and history — is for signed-in members. First time? Pick your name and create a password.

The recommended flow

Step 0
Set up your profile
On My profile: a photo and where you're usually coming from, so the troupe knows who's who and can plan travel. It's also where you pick Light or Dark, change your password and link your calendar.
Optional
Check against your own calendar
Link your Google, iCloud or Outlook calendar on My profile to see it over your own views, and let the app walk you through it. Its repeating events can become Busy rules on your standing schedule, so it's worth doing before step 1. Your calendar isn't visible to anyone else in the troupe.
Step 1
Set your standing schedule
Your usual week, once, on My schedule: when you're normally free, and the regular things that make you busy.
Step 2
Mark the days that differ
On Week, Day or Month: paint hours with the Free or Busy brush, or mark a whole day ✓ free or ✕ busy. ↺ hands a day back to your standing schedule.
Step 3
See when the group is free
Week colours every hour by how many can make it; tap a day to see it in detail on Day. Plans live on Events.

The pages

Tap a name to go there, or a line to read more.

DayOne day in words: who's free at every point, and the best times.

Best times first, then By block (the day as a list — a new block starts whenever someone arrives or leaves) or By person (a column each, side by side).
Change your own day in the box: paint with Free or Busy, or use ✓ ✕ ↺.
Events sit at their times, with who can make all of them.

WeekSeven days, hour by hour: paint your own time, see everyone's.

My availability is yours to paint; Everyone shows the group. Phones switch between them; wide screens show both side by side.
Pick the Free or Busy brush and drag; start a stroke on time already painted that way to erase it. Each day has ✓ free all day, ✕ busy all day and ↺ standing schedule.
Tap a group slot to see who's free; tap a day's name or date to open it on Day.

MonthThe month at a glance — good for spotting whole days you're away.

Mark whole days free or busy, or paint them, without scrolling through hours.
Me + team shows the group with your time as an indigo rail; My availability shows just yours, full size.
Tap a day to see who's free, hour by hour.

EventsRehearsals and shows, with who can make each one.

Anyone signed in can add, edit or duplicate an event. A mini calendar shows the next few weeks — tap an event to jump to it.
Repeating events (every week, or every 2nd / 3rd / 4th, with the same Except / Only weeks as your schedule). Change or delete just one date, or that date and every later one.
Add to my calendar for one event (a file or Google Calendar), or subscribe once and every group event appears in your own calendar and stays updated.

My scheduleYour usual week, as rules. Every date follows it unless you change that date.

Free rules add up; Busy rules cut into them — busy always wins where they overlap. Either can be All day.
How often: every week or every 2nd / 3rd / 4th. Except / Only picks weeks of the month (“every Thursday except the last”).
Saving takes effect from today; past weeks keep what was true then. Busy time from a rule shows as Standing (↺) on your views.

HistoryEvery change, who made it, and a way back.

Every save is recorded: painting, whole-day marks, schedule changes, busy time added from a calendar, and admin edits (marked admin).
Open one to see the days drawn before and after. Restore brings back that version from today forward; past dates are left alone, and the current version stays in the list.
Switch between your saves and everyone's; older entries load when you ask.

My profilePhoto, location, light or dark, your password — and your calendar.

Your photo and location show on your name card to signed-in troupe members.
Password: everyone creates one (8+ characters) the first time they sign in; change it here. Forgotten it? An admin can clear it, and you create a new one at your next sign-in.
Appearance: Light, Dark or Device default — just for you.
Your calendar: link it, review it, or disconnect it (see below).

Membersadmins onlyAdmins add and remove members, edit availability for someone, and manage admins and passwords.

Edit someone's availability for them (with their say-so) — a yellow bar stays at the top while you do, and History marks every change admin.
Add a member (they create their password at first sign-in), rename them, or change the order names are listed in.
Remove someone who's left: they drop out of the roster and every count, but History keeps their past entries, marked (former member). Restoring them brings everything back as normal; only Delete permanentlyerases their History.
Make or remove admins, and clear a forgotten password (admins never see anyone's password).

Your own calendar — optional

Link the calendar you already keep to check this app against it, and, if you like, go through it once to mark when you're busy. Your calendar isn't visible to anyone else in the troupe — not even admins. The group sees only the busy time you choose to add, and nothing is ever marked for you.

How to connect — paste a private link

Copy your calendar's private link:
- Google: Settings → your calendar → “Secret address in iCal format”.
- iCloud: share the calendar as a Public Calendar and copy its link.
- Outlook: Settings → Calendar → Shared calendars → publish it, then copy the ICS link.
Paste it under Your calendar on My profile. The link is stored encrypted and never shown again.

Show my calendar — see it over your own views

On your own Day, Week and Month views, Show my calendar draws your calendar as teal outlines, drawn the same way on all three, so you can line your availability up with it by eye. The group's events always sit on top of it. It never changes anything.

All shows every event; Busy only leaves out ones marked “free” in your calendar or that you declined (a maybe still counts as busy); Hidden turns it off. It starts Hidden.
All-day events have the same three choices of their own. On Week, an all-day event outlines the whole day with its name at the top.
A solid outline makes you busy in your calendar; a dotted one, “(maybe)”, is tentative; a faded, dashed one is marked free there or declined, so it doesn't make you busy.
Your choices are remembered on that device.

The guided review — it walks you through, you decide

Choose what counts — all-day events, tentative ones, ones you declined, ones marked free.
Repeating events first — each series once: busy every time (as a Busy rule), busy on those dates only, not busy, or skip.
Then week by week over the next two months — busy or not busy for each event, or the whole week at once.

Stop whenever you like; it picks up where you left off. Every Save says what it will do, and nothing is marked busy or free unless you press it. Later, if an event you confirmed is cancelled or moved, the app asks before changing anything, and it lets you know when there are new events to look at.

What's kept, and disconnecting — privacy

Your link, encrypted, and your answers. Event titles and times are held only in a short encrypted cache (about 20 minutes) so pages load quickly — never descriptions, locations or guests.
Disconnect any time on My profile: the link, the cache and your answers are deleted. Busy time you already added stays — History can undo it.

What the colours mean

The group. How many can make it, out of all 6: warm is some but fewer than 4; green is 4 or more — enough — and deepens toward everyone. Counts read like “3 of 6 free”, and anyone who hasn't answered yet counts as not free.
Indigo is you — your own free time (a thin indigo rail on each Month day).
Rose hatching is busy — one look for all your busy time: marked for a day, painted, or from a Busy rule.
A magenta outline is an event, labelled, drawn over its hours — an all-day event outlines the whole day.
Faded and hatched is the past — and past days are locked, so nothing there can change by accident.

Smaller markers — busy all day, standing, ✎ edited, your calendar, today, admin

Busy all day — a whole day marked busy, or covered by a Busy rule (then it says “standing”).
Standing (or ↺ where it's narrow) — busy because of your standing schedule. Paint over it to change just that day.
A day's buttons — ✓ free all day, ✕ busy all day, ↺ back to your standing schedule. The filled one is what the day is now.
✎ edited — hours painted by hand that day. + busy — busy time added to a day that otherwise follows your standing schedule (↺ clears it).
Teal outlines — your own calendar, when Show my calendar is set to All or Busy only (the same on Day, Week and Month; on Week an all-day event outlines the whole day). No one else in the troupe sees them, and the group's events always sit on top. Solid ones make you busy in your calendar; dotted ones, marked “(maybe)”, are tentative; faded dashed ones don't make you busy (marked free there, or declined).
Today — its date sits in a filled circle. Tap any day's name or date to open it on the Day view.
A yellow bar across the top means an admin is editing someone else's availability for them. One tap on Done ends it.

Handy to know

Undo — the Undo button on Week, Day and Month steps back through your changes (or ⌘Z / Ctrl+Z on a keyboard). Anything older: History.
The lock — switch it on to browse without any chance of changing your availability. Unlocking asks first; it covers every page.
Past days are locked — only today and later can change, so the record of what happened stays true.
Your edits always win — a day you've changed by hand keeps that change even if your standing schedule changes. ↺ hands it back.

On a phone? Turn it sideways

Everything works upright, but these show more sideways:

Week — wider days; on most phones, yours and everyone's side by side
Day — on most phones, the timeline pins to the left, so you can paint your own availability right beside who's free; By person gets wider columns too
Month — bigger days, easier to read

Who sees what

Not signed in: Only this page and the sign-in page — nothing about anyone's availability.
Signed-in members: Everyone's availability, events and History, plus photos and locations.
Only you: Your calendar — it isn't visible to anyone else in the troupe (the group sees only busy time you add) — and your Light / Dark choice.
Admins: Can add and remove members, and change your availability for you; it shows in History under their name, marked admin. They never see your password.