Studio reference

The frame

One editor, four surfaces. The chrome is identical; what changes is the canvas and which panels appear.

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1. 1Panel rail: Scenes, Layers, Data, Library, Design, and Actions on dashboards and insights. ⌘\ collapses it.
2. 2Panel: 280 px, one panel at a time. The header names it and the chevron closes it.
3. 3Surface switch: Story · Slides · Dashboard · Insight. Each is a menu: pick a sibling, create a new one, or convert story ↔ slides.
4. 4Canvas tools: select, pan, pin, callout, line, area, fit to data.
5. 5Save beat: write the current map state onto the active scene. B.
6. 6Preview width: fit · wall · desktop · tablet · phone. Phone renders the real mobile layout, not a narrow desktop.
7. 7Theme variant: light · dark · night · ops. Saved on the surface; this is what publishes.
8. 8Canvas: the published runtime, editable in place.
9. 9Inspector: three tabs: Beat, Block, Surface.
10. 10Status bar: cursor coordinates, zoom, pitch and bearing, in mono.
11. 11Preview: the reader's view, in place or in a new tab once the surface is published.
12. 12Publish: snapshot and go live.

Panels

Scenes

The ordered list of chapters (story), slides (deck) or the two insight scenes. Click a scene to fly the map to its beat; drag to reorder; [ and ] step. Each row's menu offers duplicate, save beat from map, and delete. See Beats & camera.

Layers

The layer stack for the whole project, with an eye, an opacity slider and the feature count per layer. Add layer from dataset offers everything attached to the project. The legend preview at the bottom is what readers will see. See Layers & styling.

Data

The datasets attached to this project, with their geometry type, feature count and live status, plus the controls to attach another from the workspace library or bring in a new one. Attaching a dataset offers to create its first layer.

Library

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1. 1Search: narrows the whole catalog as you type.
2. 2Narrative: heading, paragraph, list, pull quote, callout, stat chip, image, video, table, embed, divider, spacer, SVG, code, caption.
3. 3Spatial & data: map, KPI, chart, legend, bookmarks and the rest, placeable inside a chapter as well as on a dashboard.
4. 4Drop target: drag a block onto the canvas, or a map marker onto the map to place a pin at that coordinate.

Design

Variant, basemap, colour tokens, type and chrome. See Theming.

Actions

Dashboards and insights only: the "when A happens, do B" graph. See Dashboards.

The inspector

Three tabs, always in the same place.

When a layer is selected in the Layers panel the inspector shows the layer inspector instead, with the render type, paint, classification, labels, interactivity, filter, zoom range and legend.

Canvas tools

Keyboard

⌘K, ⌘J and ⌘S keep working while you are typing in a text field; the rest stand down so they do not fight the editor. On Windows and Linux read ⌘ as Ctrl.

The command palette

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1. 1Commands: the default tab, everything in the Studio, grouped.
2. 2Ask / generate: the same box in AI mode; Tab switches, Esc closes.
3. 3Filter: type to narrow; ↑ ↓ to move, Enter to run.
4. 4Create: Add chapter / Add slide, and every narrative block insert.
5. 5Map: save beat, save as new beat, duplicate & nudge, and the four drawing tools.

AI features

Three, all reading the same thing: your dataset's schema, field statistics, bounding box and a small sample of rows, never the whole table.

The system prompts forbid inventing numbers that the provided statistics and sample rows do not support. Output is schema-validated before anything is written into your document, and everything it produces is an ordinary block you can edit or delete.

AI needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY on the server. Without it the commands are visible but report that AI is unavailable rather than failing silently.

Autosave, undo and versions

• Autosave: edits are debounced and written continuously. The top bar shows Saving… / Saved · HH:MM / Unsaved / Save failed.
• Undo: ⌘Z covers the block tree, actions, beats, layers and annotations.
• Versions: ⌘S snapshots the surface with a label; publishing snapshots one automatically. Surface → History lists and restores them. Restoring is an edit, so it still has to be published.

Preview and publish

Preview (P) switches the canvas into read mode in place. Once the surface has been published it opens the real viewer in a new tab instead, including a draft preview of unpublished changes. Publish writes the snapshot; Share opens the full settings page. See Publishing & sharing.