Panels & Layout

ArcBrush uses a dockable panel system. Drag panels to rearrange them, pop them out into separate OS windows for multi-monitor setups, and save custom workspace presets.

Panels

Four main panels carry the editing workflow:

Panel	Purpose
Library	Browse and search all node types. Drag nodes from here onto the canvas. A Favorites section at the top shows nodes you’ve starred.
Node Graph	The main canvas where you build and wire your node graph.
Preview	Displays the output of the selected (or locked) node. See Preview Panel for details.
Parameters	Shows parameters for the currently selected node.

Alongside them are the utility panels, each opened from the Window menu:

Panel	Purpose
Brush Library	Your saved brush collection, grouped by category. See Brushes.
Brush Studio	The full editor for the current brush: tip, grain, stroke path, taper, dynamics, and rendering.
Swatches	Document color palettes, the built-in color libraries, Recent Colors, and Document Colors. See Swatches.
Variables	Named {token} values for export paths, import paths, and the Text node. See Variables & Tokens.
Application Log	Scrollable log of app events, warnings, and errors. Useful for troubleshooting.

Utility panels keep their title tab visible when docked, so you can always tell what you are looking at. The four main panels still hide the title bar when docked alone, to save space.

Rearranging Panels

Drag a panel’s title bar to detach it. As you drag, drop targets highlight to show where the panel will land. You can dock panels as tabs alongside other panels, or split them into their own region above, below, or beside existing panels.

Your layout saves automatically between sessions. The next time you open ArcBrush, every panel returns to where you left it.

Maximize a Panel

Press the grave key (the unshifted key above Tab) or Ctrl+Shift+M (Cmd+Shift+M on macOS) to fill the window with whichever panel your pointer is over. Press it again to restore your previous layout. The second press always restores, wherever the pointer is by then.

Every dockable panel supports this, including the Node Graph and Preview, in every built-in workspace and any layout you have saved. If the pointer is not over a panel, nothing happens: the shortcut acts on the panel under the cursor.

Panel sizes, split positions, and which tab was selected in each group all come back on restore. Scroll position is the one exception, returning to the top.

• Opening or closing a panel from the Window menu while maximized restores your layout first, then applies the change. Switching workspaces, applying a built-in layout, or choosing Reset Layout discards the maximized view the same way.
• A panel already popped out into its own window is not maximized further, unless another panel shares that window, in which case the shortcut collapses it down to the one panel.
• While maximized, rearranging panels in a different window is undone on restore. Moving or resizing that window itself sticks. Restore first if you want to rearrange a second window.
• Maximizing is a temporary view, never a saved layout change. If ArcBrush closes unexpectedly while maximized, reopening restores your real layout.

The shortcut is rebindable like any other: Settings > Keyboard, search for Maximize Panel.

Pop-Out Windows

Pop any panel out into its own OS window by dragging it outside the main window, or by right-clicking a panel tab and choosing Pop Out. This is useful for multi-monitor setups where you want the Preview or Parameters panel on a second display.

Each popped-out window has an Always on Top toggle in its title bar menu, so you can keep a reference panel visible above other applications.

To return a popped-out panel to the main window, drag it back onto a dock target or close the pop-out window (the panel reappears in its last docked position).

Text and UI elements rescale cleanly when you move a popped-out panel between monitors with different DPI settings.

Known limitations

• Linux Wayland: pop-out is disabled because the Wayland protocol does not yet support cross-display window drag. X11 (including XWayland) works normally.
• macOS: a popped-out panel does not follow when switching Spaces in Mission Control with “Displays have separate Spaces” enabled. Use the Window menu to recall the panel.

Window Menu

The Window menu provides centralized layout control:

• Show/hide toggles for every panel. Hidden panels can be recalled at any time.
• Reset Layout returns all panels to the default arrangement (with a confirmation dialog).
• Lock Layout prevents accidental rearrangement. When locked, panel title bars cannot be dragged and pop-out/close actions are disabled.

Workspace Presets

A workspace is a saved panel arrangement. Switch between workspaces to adapt your layout to different tasks.

Open Window > Workspace to access:

Preset	Description
Default	Balanced four-panel layout for general editing.
Big Graph	Maximizes the Node Graph canvas for building large pipelines.
Vertical	Stacks panels vertically for portrait or narrow displays.
Painting	Four columns: Node Graph, a Brush Library and Brush Studio stack, the Preview canvas, and a Swatches and Parameters stack. Panels a painting session does not need are hidden.

Custom Workspaces

• Save Workspace As… saves the current panel arrangement under a custom name.
• Manage Workspaces… opens a dialog where you can rename or delete saved workspaces. Built-in presets (Default, Big Graph, Vertical, Painting) cannot be removed.

Workspace names can be up to 128 characters. Built-in preset names are reserved and case-insensitive.

Graph Overview

With nothing selected in the Node Graph, the Parameters panel shows a summary of the whole document instead of an empty state. Click any node and the panel switches back to that node’s parameters; click empty canvas, or press Escape to clear the selection, and the Overview returns.

The header carries the document’s file name (or Untitled) and its state - Saved, Modified, Read-only, or Untitled - with a copy button for the full path and a Reveal in File Manager button that shows the saved project file in Explorer or Finder. Below it, counts of nodes, wires, and endpoints, and a one-line health verdict:

Verdict	Meaning
Ready	Nothing is wrong, nothing is in flight, every output has a current result.
No reported issues	Nothing is wrong, but something has not been evaluated yet (or Lazy Mode is on), so a clean bill of health cannot be claimed.
Warnings	A node has a warning, or an export is stale.
Needs attention	Something failed, an export failed, or a required input is missing.

Sections below it cover:

• Health & Activity - every node worth flagging, one row each, worst first: failures, then missing required inputs, then warnings, then stale exports, then anything still processing, with bypassed nodes last. An unconnected optional input is never treated as a problem.
• Outputs - every export node and every dead-end node, with whether its cached result is current and, for an export, whether it has been written this session, is stale, or failed.
• Sources - every node bringing new content in: an imported file or folder, an SVG import, a procedural generator, a Paint/Text/Roto/Scatter node, or a cloud result.
• Structure - plain counts of nodes, wires, groups, sticky notes, root nodes, outputs, missing inputs, bypassed nodes, populated viewer slots, and nodes per category.
• Performance - how many nodes are idle, complete, processing, failed, or waiting on you, and the five slowest nodes by their last full cook time.
• Document & Resources - the depth you are processing in and the depth the document was authored in, plus variable, palette, and swatch counts.

Clicking any row in Health & Activity, Outputs, or Sources selects that node; a separate reveal action also frames it in the Node Graph.

Copy Graph Report puts the whole summary on your clipboard as plain text for pasting into a bug report. Two copies of an unchanged document produce identical text, and the report contains file names only, never full local paths.

Note

Graph Overview only reports on results that already exist from a previous cook. Opening it, scrolling it, or leaving it open never starts or waits on evaluation. An output nobody has run yet reads as not evaluated, which is normal, not an error.

Parameter Presets

Every node has a gear menu in the Parameters panel header for saving and reusing its settings. The menu lets you:

• Save Preset… stores the node’s current parameter values under a name.
• Load a preset from the list of presets saved for that node type. Loading applies as a single undoable change, so one Ctrl+Z reverts every value at once.
• Reset to Defaults returns the node to its shipped values.
• Manage Presets… opens a dialog to rename, delete, share a preset as a file, or import one.
• Copy All Parameters and Paste All Parameters copy every value on a node at once and paste the matching values onto another node in one undoable step.

Presets are per-node-type: a preset saved on one Blur node is available to every Blur node, but not to other node types.

New-node defaults

In the Manage Presets window, a star marks whichever preset is the New-node default for that type. Click the star on any preset to make it the one every newly created node of that type starts from, or click it again to clear the default. Saving a preset and setting it as your default stay two separate steps, so saving never silently changes what new nodes look like.

The first time you select a node created this way, the Parameters panel notes which preset it started from, with a link back to the presets menu and a way to dismiss the note for good.

Copy and Paste Individual Values

Right-click any slider, numeric field, text field, or dropdown for Copy Value and Paste Value alongside Reset to Default, so you can carry a single value between two nodes. Paste is greyed out when the copied text would not fit the target field (for example, pasting text into a number), and dropdowns copy and paste by their option name.

Double-click a slider’s handle to reset it straight to its default, without opening the menu first.

Hold Ctrl (Cmd on macOS) and scroll over a slider or numeric field to nudge its value by a sensible step, or add Shift for a finer one; scrolling can carry a slider past its visible track up to its true limit. The same hold-and-scroll steps a closed dropdown to its previous or next choice. It works across the Parameters panel, Brush Studio, and Settings.

Every value box in a node’s Parameters panel shares one width, so slider tracks all start at the same left edge instead of staggering by row.

Type Arithmetic Into a Numeric Field

Any numeric parameter field, a position picker’s X or Y, and the Paste Value action accept a small arithmetic expression instead of a plain number. Type it and press Enter (or click away to commit): ArcBrush evaluates the expression and writes the result, exactly as if you had typed the answer yourself. Typing 1920/3 into a Resize Width field commits 640; typing 100+100 into a blur radius commits 200.

Supported	Examples
Add, subtract, multiply, divide	100+100, 1920/3, 12*4
Exponents with ^	2^10 gives 1024
Parentheses to control order	(2+3)*4 gives 20
A leading minus or plus	-5, -(3+2), 2*-3
Decimals and scientific notation	1.5, -1e-3

Standard order of operations applies: multiplication and division resolve before addition and subtraction, and ^ binds tighter than a leading minus, so -2^2 is -4 while (-2)^2 is 4. A field that only takes whole numbers rounds the result to the nearest integer, so 10/4 commits 3.

An expression that doesn’t parse, or one with no valid result such as a division by zero, is treated like any other invalid entry: the field quietly keeps its previous value. Anything that already read as a plain number behaves exactly as before, so this only ever turns entries that used to be rejected into ones that succeed.

Named functions such as min and max, references to other fields, a percent operator, and a comma as the decimal point are not part of this syntax. An entry starting with = is left alone entirely; that prefix is reserved.

Compact Parameters

By default each parameter in the Parameters panel shows its label and control on one line, aligned into a tidy two-column form that keeps the panel short. Turn off Compact Parameters to stack each label above its control instead. Labels too long to fit on one line always keep their own row rather than being clipped.

Compact Parameters is on by default and toggles from the View menu.