Panels & Layout
Every part of the DNA window is a panel you can split, tab, resize and rearrange.
How the layout works
The window is a set of panels packed together by splits. A split divides an area in two, side by side or stacked top and bottom, with a thin splitter line between them. Each area holds either a single panel or a stack of tabs, several panels sharing one space with one visible at a time.
Any area can itself be split again. A big viewport with the node graph beneath it, a tall parameters column down one side, a tabbed corner holding the console and a data view together: all of these are reachable from the same two operations.
Rearranging panels
Drag a panel by its tab to move it. Past about 5 px the drag arms, and a ghost tab plus a highlighted drop zone follow the cursor, showing the result before you let go. Esc cancels a drag in progress.
Drop onto the tab bar to add the panel as another tab in that stack.
Drop into the outer quarter of an edge, left, right, top or bottom, to split that area and place the panel on that side.
Move the last tab out of an area and the empty space closes up, leaving no dead gap.
Right-click a tab for Float Panel, which moves it into its own window. See Pop-out windows for which panels that works on.
Resizing
Hover the splitter line between two panels and the cursor changes to a resize handle. Drag to shift the balance between them. No panel goes below 100 px, so nothing collapses to an unusable sliver.
Layout presets
Three arrangements ship under View > Layout, on Cmd+1, Cmd+2 and Cmd+3.
Default puts the viewport beside the node graph, with the console and data viewer tabbed under the graph, the timeline along the bottom, and assets over parameters down the right.
Compositing tabs the viewport and node graph together over the timeline, with parameters over assets on the right.
Editing leads with the node graph and tabs the viewport with parameters and assets on the right.
Picking one replaces the whole docked arrangement. Floating windows are left where they are.
Saving your layout
The arrangement is written when the app quits normally: which panels are open, how they are split, the splitter positions, and the active tab in each stack. It is restored at the next launch.
Floating windows are saved with it, and reopen at the position and size they were left at. The main window's own size and position are not: they come back at the default each launch. Nothing is written before quit either, so a crash loses layout changes made that session.
Per-node viewers, the extra view that opens for one specific node, are treated as temporary. They are stripped both when the layout is written and when it is read, so one never comes back as a second viewport.
What panels can show
Panels are views onto the graph. Everything you create lives in the node graph, and a panel shows or edits part of it.
Node Graph builds and wires nodes.
Viewport shows the live result. See The viewport.
Timeline & Layer Manager carries playback plus visibility, lock, solo, bypass, opacity and blend mode per layer.
Parameters and Pinned are two tabs onto one view: the controls you pinned, and the hotbar. A node's own controls sit on the node itself.
Assets is the library of files and assets. See The asset browser.
Data Viewer inspects a collection as a table, and stacks any outputs you pinned from the graph underneath it.
Console carries messages, warnings and errors.
Export gathers the export and render-output nodes.
Performance reports frame timing and memory. See The performance panel.
View > Panels lists eight of these. The item removes a panel that is currently docked, and opens one that is not as a floating window rather than docking it.