Layouts and Workspaces

A layout is an arrangement of viewers, the timeline, and tool panels. Lightworks ships with task-focused layouts and lets you build your own, so the workspace can match whatever you're doing - reviewing footage, cutting, mixing, or exporting.

Fixed and flexible layouts

Lightworks has two layout styles:

• Fixed layout - dedicated areas for editing, effects, and more, with all the tools you need laid out ready to go. Panels sit in tidy, preset positions - clean, predictable, and the recommended way to work. If you're new to Lightworks, this is the place to start.
• Flexible layout - manage your workspace however you want: place panels and viewers freely, overlap them, organise them into rooms, and work on multiple sequences at the same time.

You can switch between layout styles at any time from the Project Browser's Settings.

On a two-monitor setup they differ: the fixed layout keeps the interface on one display and can send full-screen video output to the second, while the flexible layout can spread the interface itself across both displays.

Choosing a layout

Click the chevron next to the active layout's name to open the Layout Chooser. It shows visual previews so you can see each arrangement before you switch, grouped into two sections: Lightworks Layouts (the built-in set) and Custom Layouts (yours).

The built-in fixed layouts are:

On a fresh install, the Edit, Effects, Audio, and Export layouts are open as tabs, ready to go.

The Effects and Audio layouts have their own timelines, without the edit tools and with unnecessary tracks minimised. Each is an independent view of the same sequence, so it remembers its own keyframe tracks and its own side menu state - audio tracks arrive with keyframes on in the Audio layout, video and FX tracks in the Effects layout. Trimming, dragging and selecting clips all still work on them.

Switching layouts and using tabs

You can keep up to six active layouts open at once and switch between them like browser tabs - so you might keep Edit, Audio, and Export a single click apart.

• Switch to another tab by clicking it.
• Swap the active tab to a different layout by clicking the chevron next to the active layout's name and picking from the Layout Chooser. If the layout you choose isn't already one of your tabs, it replaces the current tab - Lightworks tells you when this happens.
• Add a tab with the + tab. It's only shown while you have fewer than six layouts active.
• Remove a tab with Remove Layout - this just removes the tab from view; the layout itself is untouched.
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Creating and editing custom layouts

The Layout Designer is where you create and manage your own arrangements.

1. Open the Layout Designer and choose New Layout.
2. Drag components from the list into position to build up your layout.
3. Use Snap to grid for clean alignment, and resize areas by dragging their borders.
4. Save the layout under its own name - it appears in the Layout Chooser under Custom Layouts.

You can also duplicate an existing layout as a starting point and tweak the copy without losing the original.

Updating and resetting layouts

As you work, you can move and resize panels within a layout. To make those changes stick - or throw them away - open the Layout Chooser: when you point at a layout, its available options appear as buttons over the entry.

• Update - save your current panel positions back into the layout.
• Customise - edit the layout in the layout designer.
• Reset - return the layout's panels to their default positions.

Note: You can't update or customise a built-in Lightworks layout. You can still move panels around while using one - to keep the result, save it as a new layout of your own.

Note: To delete one of your layouts choose Customise and then click Delete layout in the layout designer.

Tip: Build a layout once, update it to save your positions, then switch to it any time from the Layout Chooser or a layout tab.

Recommended layouts for common tasks

• Starting a cut? Use Edit (or an Edit Dual Viewer layout if you like source and sequence side by side).
• Adding effects? Switch to Effects for the Effects Settings panel.
• Mixing audio? Use Audio for the full audio mixer.
• Delivering? Use Export to review and export.
• Importing and organising? Use Media.

For the panels these layouts contain, see The Lightworks interface.