Hands on
Working the controls
Every number in Monte is a row you can open into a slider — how to drag, type, retune the range, flip units, and read the marks a change leaves behind. · 6-minute read
Rows and sliders
Every number in Monte is a row: the name on the left, the value on the right. Rows rest calm — hover one and its quiet controls appear; click anywhere on it and it opens into a live slider. One row is open at a time: opening another closes the first, and a click outside (or Escape) closes it too.
Typing beats dragging
For a number you already know, click the value itself — it is an editable field, not a label. Typing accepts values well beyond the slider's current span, and the range widens itself to include what you typed. The field is forgiving mid-edit: it can sit empty or partial while you type, and settles when you leave it.
Your ranges
The two small fields under the track are the slider's own bounds — edit them to work in the region you actually care about. A narrow range means finer steps: the slider always moves in roughly a hundred increments across whatever span you give it, so tightening $0–$400K to $120K–$180K turns coarse jumps into precise ones.
One honest caveat: ranges belong to you, not to the scenario. A range you set follows that control everywhere — every plan, every scenario — because it is an ergonomic preference, not part of the model. Reset clears it along with the value.
Dollars or percent
Rows with a pay base — a 401(k) contribution, an attached bonus — carry a $ | % toggle when open. It changes how you enter the number, not what the number is: $12,000 against a $145,000 salary and 8.3% are the same fact, and the value converts as you flip. The row stays open across the flip so you can keep working.
What a change leaves behind
Change anything and the row grows a slim accent bar on its left edge; the card's header rolls the count up as “· N changed”. Both mean the same thing: this differs from what Reset would restore — your last saved state. The chips up top wear a dot for the same reason, and the save bar holds everything until you keep or discard it. Nothing you do in a rail travels anywhere on its own.
One mark means something else entirely. A ⊙ beside a value says the number came from somewhere other than the surface you're standing on. Usually that is your plan showing through a scenario — a note, not a restriction, and the row still opens into a slider like any other. But when the number comes from a scenario you're previewing over your plan, the mark is a gate: instead of a slider, the row offers to open that scenario or drop it from the preview. You change a value where it lives, which is why an edit can never quietly disappear underneath one.
Reset
Reset restores a row to its saved value — one row, nothing else. Rows that also carry an app default (inflation, the growth-rate seats) open a small menu instead, so “back to what I saved” and “back to Monte's default” stay distinct choices. For an override row — a per-account return sitting on top of your global belief — reset to default removes the override entirely, so the row follows the global number again rather than freezing today's.
Bigger hammers live elsewhere: the save bar's Discard drops everything unsaved on the surface you're on, and a scenario's menu can reset it to its plan wholesale.