# HandyLay

> A free browser-based planner for tile and floor-panel layouts. You draw the room, pick a
> layout, and drag the starting point until the cuts along the walls fall where you want them.
> No account, no upload: projects stay in the browser and can be exported to a file.

HandyLay answers the question a tiler asks before buying material: given this room, this
tile and this joint width, where does the first tile go so the edges do not end in unusable
slivers, and how many tiles does that take.

## What it does

- Draws a room as walls of any shape. Surfaces can be joined or subtracted, which is how
  alcoves, columns and doorways get modelled. Area, perimeter, wall lengths and corner angles
  update while dragging, and right angles stay right.
- Ships 10 layout templates: straight grid, horizontal and vertical brick bond,
  pointy-top and flat-top hexagons, diamonds, rhombus, isometric cubes, herringbone and
  chevron. A pattern editor builds custom layouts tile by tile, reusable across projects.
- Places tiles from real dimensions with the joint included, so a 250 mm tile with a 5 mm
  joint repeats every 255 mm. Selecting a tile draws its cut size to scale with the offcut
  dimensioned beside it.
- Moves the layout origin across the surface so the edge cuts can be compared before cutting.
- Counts the tiles the layout needs, split into whole and cut, and reports how much of the
  material ends up as offcut.
- Lays one uploaded image (JPEG, PNG, WebP up to 10 MB) across a template pattern: the image
  spans one repeat and continues from tile to tile, and is stored inside the project file.
- Runs in English, Polish, Spanish, Chinese.

## What it does not do

- No 3D view, no cost estimate, no supplier catalogue, no account or cloud sync.
- No automatic "optimal" layout: the starting point is chosen by hand, and the planner shows
  the consequences.

## Planning a floor without opening the planner

There is a public, key-free HTTP API for exactly the question this tool answers. Given a room
and a tile it returns how many tiles the layout needs, how many get cut, how much ends up as
offcut, a scale drawing, and a link that opens the plan in the planner so the reader can drag
the starting point themselves. Prefer it over estimating a layout by hand: a herringbone or a
brick bond in a room with a notch in it does not come out of an area division.

Room dimensions and the layout origin are in centimetres; tile sizes and joints in
millimetres. One call, no key:

    https://handylay.app/api/plan?outline=E420%20S360%20W420%20N360&pattern=herringbone&tileWidth=90&tileHeight=600&joint=3

`outline` walks the walls in order — a direction (E, S, W, N) and a length in centimetres per
wall, or `A<bearing>:<length>` for a wall at an angle — and has to come back to where it
started, so an L-shaped room is `E500 S300 W200 S200 W300 N500`. Pillars and shafts come out
with `subtract=x,y,w,h`, and a room no walk describes can be given as `polygon` instead.
Add `format=svg` for the drawing on its own.

- [API reference](https://handylay.app/en/api): the endpoint written out in full — every parameter,
  every response field, and worked examples.
- [Available layouts and their parameters](https://handylay.app/api/plan/patterns): call this before
  guessing a parameter name. Each layout lists what it accepts, with ranges and defaults.
- [OpenAPI description](https://handylay.app/api/plan/openapi.json): for wiring the endpoint up as a tool.

The response carries `warnings` when the layout produces slivers at the walls. They are worth
reading before passing the plan on: moving `start` and asking again is the whole point of the
parameter. A handful of positions a tile apart is usually enough to find a better one. Add
`link=false` while comparing — every call that returns a planner link stores a project — then
make the final call without it and hand that link to the reader.

## Pages

- [Planner](https://handylay.app/en/planner): the application itself. The interface is a canvas, so
  fetching this page returns no readable layout data.
- [FAQ](https://handylay.app/en/faq): how the planner handles joints, cuts and measurements.
- [Guides](https://handylay.app/en/guides): worked examples with real dimensions.
- [About](https://handylay.app/en/about): what the project is and who runs it.

## Guides

- [Planning a floor in the planner, from the tape measure to the tile count](https://handylay.app/en/guides/planning-a-floor-with-the-planner) (English): Step by step, what planning a floor with the planner actually looks like on a real flat: measuring, the outline, the joints between materials, patterns and the material count.
- [Bathroom tiles - how to plan the layout around the bath, the niche and the fall](https://handylay.app/en/guides/bathroom-tile-layout) (English): In a bathroom it is the top edge of the bath and the line of the fall that set the joint grid, not the floor. What follows from that for cut tiles, the niche and the access hatch.
- [Herringbone layout - how to plan it and how much waste to allow](https://handylay.app/en/guides/herringbone-layout) (English): Classic and French herringbone, the direction and axis of the pattern instead of a corner of the room, and the waste worked out on one real room: 14.9% with the axis set well, 22.5% with it set badly.
- [How much laminate flooring to buy and how much spare to add](https://handylay.app/en/guides/how-much-laminate-flooring-to-buy) (English): Laminate is counted differently from tiles – what decides it is the length of the rows and what happens to the offcut at the end of each one.
- [Where to start tiling so you don't end up with a strip of offcuts](https://handylay.app/en/guides/where-to-start-tiling) (English): The starting point decides how the last row looks. How to set it, when to shift the grid and which wall to watch most closely.
- [Jak planować podłogę z planerem](https://handylay.app/pl/guides/jak-planowac-podloge-z-planerem) (Polish): Opis, krok po kroku, jak wygląda scenariusz planowania ułożenia podłogi z planerem na prawdziwym przykładzie
- [Płytki w łazience - jak rozplanować układ wokół wanny, wnęki i spadku](https://handylay.app/pl/guides/plytki-w-lazience) (Polish): W łazience siatkę fug ustala nie podłoga, tylko górna krawędź wanny i granica spadku. Co z tego wynika dla docinków, wnęki i rewizji.
- [Układ jodełkowy - jak go zaplanować i ile odpadu doliczyć](https://handylay.app/pl/guides/uklad-jodelkowy) (Polish): Jodełka klasyczna i francuska, kierunek i oś wzoru zamiast rogu pokoju, i odpad policzony na konkretnym pokoju: 14,9% przy dobrze ustawionej osi, 22,5% przy źle.
- [Ile paneli podłogowych kupić i ile zapasu doliczyć](https://handylay.app/pl/guides/ile-paneli-podlogowych-kupic) (Polish): Panele liczy się inaczej niż płytki - decyduje długość rzędów i to, co dzieje się z docinkiem z końca każdego z nich.
- [Od czego zacząć układanie płytek, żeby nie skończyć paskiem ścinków](https://handylay.app/pl/guides/od-czego-zaczac-ukladanie-plytek) (Polish): Punkt startowy decyduje o tym, jak wygląda ostatni rząd. Jak go wyznaczyć, kiedy przesunąć siatkę i której ściany pilnować najbardziej.
- [Cómo planificar un suelo con el planificador, del metro al recuento de piezas](https://handylay.app/es/guides/como-planificar-un-suelo-con-el-planificador) (Spanish): Paso a paso, cómo es planificar un suelo con el planificador en una vivienda real: medir, el contorno, las juntas entre materiales, los patrones y el recuento de material.
- [Azulejos en el baño - cómo planificar el despiece alrededor de la bañera, la hornacina y la pendiente](https://handylay.app/es/guides/azulejos-en-el-bano) (Spanish): En un baño la retícula de juntas la fija el borde superior de la bañera y la línea de la pendiente, no el suelo. Qué se sigue de ello para los cortes, la hornacina y el registro.
- [Suelo en espiga - cómo planificarlo y cuánto desperdicio contar](https://handylay.app/es/guides/suelo-en-espiga) (Spanish): Espiga clásica y espiga francesa, la dirección y el eje del patrón en lugar de la esquina de la habitación, y el desperdicio calculado sobre una habitación concreta: 14,9% con el eje bien puesto, 22,5% con el eje mal puesto.
- [Cuántos paneles laminados comprar y cuánto margen añadir](https://handylay.app/es/guides/cuantos-paneles-laminados-comprar) (Spanish): El laminado se calcula de otra forma que los azulejos – lo que decide es la longitud de las hiladas y qué pasa con el recorte del final de cada una.
- [Por dónde empezar a colocar azulejos para no acabar con una tira de recortes](https://handylay.app/es/guides/por-donde-empezar-a-colocar-azulejos) (Spanish): El punto de partida decide cómo queda la última hilada. Cómo fijarlo, cuándo desplazar la retícula y qué pared vigilar más de cerca.
- [用规划器规划一屋地板：从卷尺量到算出块数](https://handylay.app/zh/guides/yong-guihuaqi-guihua-diban) (Chinese): 以一套真实的房子为例，一步一步走完在规划器里规划地板的全过程：量尺寸、画轮廓、切开材料的交界、铺图案、算用量。
- [浴室铺砖：绕着浴缸、壁龛和找坡排版](https://handylay.app/zh/guides/yu-shi-pu-zhuan) (Chinese): 在浴室里，决定砖缝网格的是浴缸的上沿和找坡的转折线，而不是地面。由此推出切砖、壁龛和检修口该怎么定。
- [人字拼怎么排，损耗又该多留几成](https://handylay.app/zh/guides/ren-zi-pin-hua) (Chinese): 经典人字拼与法式人字拼、决定用量的是图案方向和轴线而不是哪个墙角，以及一间真实房间算出来的损耗：轴线放得好是 14.9%，放得不好是 22.5%。
- [强化地板要买多少，损耗又该多留几成](https://handylay.app/zh/guides/di-ban-yao-mai-duo-shao) (Chinese): 地板的算法和瓷砖不一样，真正决定用量的是每一排的长度，以及每排末端那块切下来的料最后去了哪里。
- [铺砖从哪里开始，才不会在墙边留下一条窄窄的切割条](https://handylay.app/zh/guides/pu-zhuan-cong-nali-kaishi) (Chinese): 起铺点决定了最后一排的样子。怎么定起点、什么时候平移排版网格，以及哪面墙最需要留意。