Designer basics

The designer is where you build a design — one screen layout made of text, media, shapes, and animation. Designs are reusable across compositions and screens.

The designer needs a laptop or desktop with at least a 1024px-wide window. Mobile
editing is on the roadmap; on a phone or tablet you can still preview and manage
designs.

First visit? A short in-context canvas tour offers itself automatically. You can
relaunch it any time from the ? button in the designer toolbar.

The workspace

Elements panel (left) — add text, shapes, images, video, and widgets. Click or drag onto the canvas.
Canvas (center) — your design surface, sized to the screen resolution.
Properties panel (right) — edit whatever is selected: position, size, colour, font, effects, animation.
Toolbar (top) — undo/redo, grid, snap, rulers, group/ungroup, focus, preview, and Save.

Adding content

Click an item in the Elements panel (e.g. Text) to add it, or drag it onto the canvas.
With the element selected, change its look in the Properties panel.
Drag to move; use the corner handles to resize.

Zoom and pan

Zoom: Ctrl/⌘ + scroll, or the zoom controls.
Pan: hold Space and drag, or middle-mouse drag.
Fit to view: the focus / fit control re-centres your design in the viewport.

Rulers and an optional grid help you align; turn on Snap to snap edges to the grid and to other elements (smart guides appear as you drag).

Layering, grouping, alignment

Reorder elements in the layers list.
Select two or more elements and Group (Ctrl/⌘ + G) to move them together.
Use the alignment tools to distribute and align a selection.

Animation

Elements can animate in and out. Set entrance/exit animations in the Properties panel; the timeline panel gives finer keyframe control for advanced motion.

Preview and save

Preview plays the design as it will appear on a screen.
Save (or Ctrl/⌘ + S) persists your work; autosave also runs in the background and an indicator shows the save state.

Drop your saved design into a composition, then into a playlist.