Canvas Designer
The Canvas Designer is a drag-and-drop authoring environment for creating multi-page interactive graphics, overlays, and presentations that play back on your LED displays. It is part of the Creator suite — a set of creative tools accessible from the Create button in the main toolbar.
Getting Started
Click Create in the main toolbar to open the Creator suite and launch the Canvas Designer. You can start from a blank canvas or open an existing design.
Canvas Elements
The canvas supports the following element types, each with its own properties panel on the right:
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Text | Rich text block with font, size, color, alignment, and shadow controls |
| Image | Static image from your media library |
| Video | Video asset with looping and autoplay options |
| Shape | Rectangles, ellipses, and other geometric shapes with fill and border |
| Line | Straight SVG line with configurable start/end points, stroke color, width, and cap style |
| Carousel | Auto-advancing or hover-triggered image slideshow |
| ScrollBox | Scrollable content region with configurable scroll behavior |
| Gallery | Browsable image and video gallery with a full-screen lightbox that supports video playback |
| iFrame | Embedded web content |
Adding Elements
Drag an element type from the Elements Panel on the left onto the canvas, or use the toolbar to insert at a default size.
Selecting and Moving Elements
Click any element to select it. Selected elements show resize handles. Drag the element to reposition it.
To select multiple elements, hold Shift and click, or drag a selection box around them.
Grouping Elements
Select two or more elements and use Group (right-click → Group, or the toolbar shortcut) to combine them into a single unit. Grouped elements move, resize, and copy together. Right-click a group and choose Ungroup to release them. (Canvas enhancement)
Proportional Resize
Hold Shift while dragging a corner handle to resize an element proportionally. (Canvas enhancement)
Cropping Images and Videos
Select an image or video element and double-click it (or click the Crop button in the toolbar) to enter crop mode. Drag the crop handles to define the visible region without modifying the underlying file. (Canvas enhancement)
Rotating Elements
Every element on the canvas has a rotation handle. Grab the handle and drag to rotate the element visually on the canvas — the bounding box rotates with it. Rotation can still be set precisely by entering a value in the element's properties. (Canvas enhancement)
Independent Corner Radius
Shapes and other elements that support rounded corners can have each corner's radius rounded independently, so you can round individual corners by different amounts rather than applying a single uniform radius to all four. (Canvas enhancement)
Alignment and Smart Guides
When you drag elements, smart alignment guides appear automatically — lines that snap to the edges and centers of other elements and the canvas boundaries. This makes it easy to align elements precisely without a grid.
To align multiple elements:
- Select two or more elements
- Use the Alignment Controls in the Properties panel (right side) to align by left edge, center, right edge, top, middle, or bottom, or to distribute elements evenly
Context Menus
Right-click any element on the canvas to access the Canvas Context Menu with quick actions including copy, paste, duplicate, group, lock, and layer order controls.
Right-click a layer in the Layers Panel to access the Layer Context Menu with the same options.
Layers Panel
The Layers Panel (left side) shows a stacked list of all elements on the current page. Drag layers to reorder them. Click the eye icon to show or hide a layer.
Typography and Fonts
The Typography section in the Properties panel provides font selection, size, weight, line height, letter spacing, color, alignment, and text shadow controls.
Available fonts include Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, Playfair Display, and more. Custom fonts can also be uploaded and used in text elements. Tenant-specific fonts may also be available depending on your organization's configuration.
Pages
Canvas designs can have multiple pages — think of these as slides in a presentation. Each page has its own set of elements.
- Click the + button at the bottom of the Pages panel to add a page
- Drag pages to reorder them
- Click a page thumbnail to switch to it
Setting a Thumbnail
Right-click a design in the library or use the Set Thumbnail option in the editor's top menu to choose a custom thumbnail image for the design. This controls how the design appears in the Asset Library and Experiences page. (Canvas enhancement)
Saving
Designs are saved automatically. Use File → Save (or Ctrl/Cmd+S) to save manually. A design name can be set from the top toolbar.
Presenting a Design
Click Present in the top toolbar to launch the design in Present Mode — a full-screen interactive playback environment.
See Present Mode for details on interactive actions, page transitions, and exiting.
Casting a Design to a Player
Canvas designs can be sent directly to a connected Vū Media Player without entering Present Mode:
- From the Experiences page, open the design's context menu and click Launch Canvas Design
- In the dialog, select Cast to Wall and choose your target player
- The design begins playing on the wall immediately
This allows operators to push a canvas design to a display without it taking over their local screen.