Finding your way around

The stage

The visuals fill the window. Everything else floats on top of them and gets out of the way: move the mouse and the controls appear; leave it still for a few seconds and they fade, along with the cursor. (How long it waits is Settings → Controls → Hide controls after.)

Key	What it does
Alt Enter	Fullscreen on and off (also at the top of the panel)
H	Hide or show the control panel
?	Help: every keyboard shortcut, and the guided tour
`	Performance HUD: frame rate, CPU time, quality level, beat prediction, brightness, tempo, song section and GPU

Drop audio files, a folder, presets or shader files anywhere on the stage to open them.

Two hands, like a game

The keys are split down the middle of the keyboard. Your left hand plays the show and your right hand shapes the look, so it can stay on the mouse and reach over only when it wants to.

• Left: performing. W A S D move through the set (A/D presets, W/S banks), Q/E step through favorites, R rerolls a random preset, F favorites, T taps the tempo, Z/X nudge the beat, C is cruise control (auto-pilot), V cycles the visuals, G freezes, B is the brake (blackout). Tab cues a preview and Space takes it live; the number keys are your hotbar of preset slots.
• Right: the selected layer. [/] change its visualization, -/= the palette, ,/. pick a layer (with ⇧, move it), ;/' fade it, L switches it off, N adds a layer, Backspace removes one. The window keys (H, J, K, M, O, I) are on this side too, since each has a button.
• ⇧ is the opposite or bigger move: ⇧ F unfavorites, ⇧ R builds a whole new look, ⇧ T marks beat 1, ⇧ Space cuts instead of fading.

Press ? for a map of the keyboard with every key labelled. All of them can be rebound in Settings → Keyboard shortcuts.

Touch gestures

On a phone or tablet, and in the installed app, the visuals respond to your fingers:

Gesture	What it does
Swipe left / right	Next / previous favorite
Swipe up	Bring back the control panel
Swipe down	Surprise me: a new random look
Double tap	Fullscreen on and off

Gestures work on the visuals themselves, not on the panel or the buttons over them. The browser's own swipes are switched off there, so pulling down won't reload the page and a sideways swipe won't go back.

The control panel

The panel sits on the right (along the bottom on a phone). Its top row has tools that are always to hand:

Button	What it does
Live	Show or hide the Live pane (K)
Strip	Show or hide the favorites and banks strip (J)
PVW	Preview mode on and off (Tab)
?	Help and keyboard shortcuts
	Performance mode (M)
	Hide the panel (H)

Below are six tabs:

Tab	For
Scene	What's on screen: Surprise me, favorites, your layers, and the overall colours and effects, motion, transitions, modulations and auto-cycle.
Visuals	Managing visualizations: uploading your own, hiding ones you don't use, keeping some out of random picks.
Presets	Favorites, banks, the library, sharing, import and export, and auto-pilot.
Audio	Your music, devices, the beat, the song and sync.
Outputs	Extra screens, preview mode and recording.
Settings	Everything else, by topic, with search. Also MIDI, keyboard shortcuts and your profile.

The bottom dock

Along the bottom left, panes stack neatly so none ever covers another. From top to bottom:

Notices

Messages appear here, newest on top, with older ones fading beneath them and disappearing on their own. Click to dismiss one early. While takes are fading in, each shows here too, with its progress: green while it runs on its own, red while you hold it on the T-bar.

The Live pane

Shows the current bank and preset, the tempo with a Tap button, the beat within the bar, and anything switched on — auto-pilot, recording, blackout, freeze. Show or hide it with Live or K, in any mode. Performance mode shows it automatically.

The switcher

In preview mode, Cut, Fade and the T-bar sit next to the Live pane.

The favorites and banks strip

A scrolling row of thumbnails across the bottom: your favorites, or the ten slots of the current bank. Click one to load it (in preview mode it goes to the preview). Click an empty bank slot to save the current look there. Scroll it with the mouse wheel. Show or hide it with Strip or J.

Undo and redo

Every change to a scene can be undone: ⌘ Z / Ctrl Z, and ⇧ ⌘ Z / Ctrl ⇧ Z to redo. That includes Surprise me, loading a preset, and moving effects between layers. There are also Undo and Redo buttons in the Presets tab.

Your work is kept

The current scene is saved as you go, so closing and reopening the browser brings it back. Presets, favorites, custom palettes and uploaded shaders are stored in your browser on this device; export them to keep a backup or move them to another computer.