Appearance
Layout Designer
The Layout Designer is an inline canvas overlay for visually positioning the elements of a composition — media clips, fields, and other positionable items — directly on top of the output preview. Instead of typing numbers into the Inspector, you drag, resize, rotate, and align items by eye, with their actual screen as the backdrop.
It is available in two places:
- Output Preview (Main Editor) — toggled with the Layout Designer button in the preview's header.
- Creator View (
/creator) — always on, sitting on top of the active stage canvas.
Both surfaces share the same component and the same keyboard shortcuts.
Opening the Designer
From the Output Preview
- Open the Output Preview (🖥 icon in the header toolbar).
- Click the Layout Designer button in the preview's header. The button turns blue when active.
- Outline boxes appear over every positionable item in the current screen.
When the designer is open, the preview's zoom and pan still work, and the outline boxes stay locked to the underlying image.
In Creator View
The Layout Designer is the primary editing surface in /creator. Selecting a stage automatically shows every active item on that stage as a draggable box.
The Toolbar
The toolbar appears above the canvas whenever the designer is open.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pick item… | Drop-down list of every positionable item. Selecting one focuses and selects it. |
| All | Select every visible item. |
| None | Clear the current selection. |
| Show all / Only selected / At locator | Visibility filter for the canvas — see only the items you care about, or only items that are live at the timeline locator. |
1920×1080 (dims badge) | Pixel size of the underlying screen. Always reflects the actual output resolution. |
| 🔓 / 🔒 | Aspect-ratio lock. When locked, resizing keeps the original W:H ratio. Hold Shift while resizing to temporarily override the lock. |
| PX / % | Units used by the numeric fields. Switch between absolute pixels and percentage of the screen. |
Selecting Items
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Select one item | Click its box on the canvas, or pick it from the Pick item… drop-down. |
| Add / remove from selection | Shift-click or Ctrl-click (⌘ on macOS) an item. |
| Select everything | Click All in the toolbar. |
| Clear selection | Click None, or click empty canvas space (without a modifier key). |
The currently-selected item also becomes the focus of the Inspector — selecting on the canvas opens the Inspector for that item and vice versa.
Moving, Resizing, and Rotating
| Gesture | Result |
|---|---|
| Drag any selected box | Moves all selected items together. |
| Drag the bottom-right grip (single selection only) | Resizes the item. Hold Shift to bypass the aspect-ratio lock for a free resize. |
| Arrow keys | Nudge the selection by 1 px per press. Hold Shift for 10 px steps. |
| Edit X / Y / W / H / R° in the numeric strip | Commits the typed value to the selected item. Respects the current PX / % unit setting. |
Rotation is set via the R° field — type any angle from −359° to 359°.
Multi-selection moves keep relative spacing
When several items are selected, dragging or nudging moves all of them by the same offset, so their relative layout is preserved. Resize is intentionally limited to single-item selection.
Visibility Filter
The drop-down between None and the dimensions badge controls what the canvas displays:
| Mode | When to use |
|---|---|
| Show all | Default — every positionable item, regardless of timeline time. |
| Only selected | Hide everything except the items you are working with — useful in crowded compositions. |
| At locator | Only items active at the current timeline locator. Great for verifying that a specific cue's frame matches the intended layout. |
Units: PX vs. %
Click the PX / % button to switch the numeric fields between pixel and percentage units.
- PX — values are absolute pixels on the screen (
1920×1080etc.). Best for fixed-resolution outputs. - % — values are a percentage of the screen width/height. Layouts authored in % survive a resolution change without reflowing.
The on-canvas drag/resize gestures are unaffected by the unit setting — they always work in the screen's native pixels. Only the numeric strip changes its display.
Tips
- Keyboard nudging works best with the canvas focused. Click anywhere inside the canvas before using arrow keys.
- Aspect lock + Shift is the fastest way to scale an item proportionally most of the time, then break ratio for a single corner.
- The dotted border that appears when you zoom the preview below 100 % is the screen boundary — anything outside that border will be cropped on the real output.
- The designer never changes timing or content — only geometry. To re-time a clip, use the Timeline; to swap media, use the File Browser.
Related Pages
- Output Preview — where the designer button lives in the Main Editor
- Inspector Panel — numeric, property-level editing of the same fields
- Timeline — re-time clips that you have positioned with the designer