Application Preferences

Application-wide settings live in the Settings (cogs) menu on the Project Browser. These apply to Lightworks as a whole, on this machine, for this user - as distinct from per-project settings (see Project settings reference).

User Interface

The User Interface group covers how Lightworks looks and behaves:

• Appearance... - opens the appearance panel for colours, sliders, transport-control style, and other visual choices (see Panel and UI customisation).
• Window style - switch between the Fixed and Flexible layouts (see The Lightworks interface).
• Auto-open project - reopen your last project on launch.
• Show hints and Show tooltips - control the built-in guidance. Hints are the one-time tips shown for new features; tooltips appear when hovering controls.
• Keyboard Shortcuts... - opens the shortcut editor (see Keyboard shortcuts reference).
• Language - change the interface language.

UI Preferences (Flexible layout)

Flexible layout has a second preferences panel of its own, opened from the settings button at the foot of the Toolbox. It covers the desktop rather than the application: tool positions, the Toolbox captions, the on-screen console, fast room switching, and the desktop wallpaper (see Panel and UI customisation).

Hardware

The Hardware group configures physical devices:

• Lightworks Console and Mackie-compatible mixing console support (Pro) - enable your control surfaces (see Keyboard, mouse, and control surfaces).
• I/O hardware - select the installed video hardware for capture and monitor output, and its output format.
• Audio output device - choose where sound plays, or follow the system default.

Information

The Settings menu also shows Information which includes a way to show the system logs, useful for support requests.

Licence and user information

Clicking on the avatar icon in the top right of the Project Browser shows your account information.
Your licences type is also shown, you can manage licences by clicking on the Activate licenses button.

Preferences travel with you

Preferences can be exported to a file and imported on another machine, so a carefully tuned setup - appearance, behaviour, shortcuts - can move between workstations.

Tip: After setting up a machine the way you like it, export your preferences and keep the file with your project archives. Rebuilding a workstation then takes minutes, not an afternoon.