Panels and Layout

Panels and Layout

The panels

Panel	What it shows
Editor pane	The document itself — the WYSIWYG surface and its gutter
Source panel	The document's raw Markdown source, editable
Preview panel	The diagram your cursor is in, rendered larger
Folder panel	The open folder's Markdown files as a tree
Navigation panel	The document's outline

All five are turned on and off from the view controls at the right of the command bar. The folder panel and the navigation panel share the left edge as two tabs of one dock; the source and preview panels take columns beside the editor, sized by dragging the divider.

The source panel

The source panel is the one place the app deliberately shows you Markdown syntax — a heading appears as # Title. It is not a separate render of the document: it is the document's own source text.

• Edit the source and the formatted document updates.
• Edit the document and the source updates.
• Scroll either one and the other scrolls to the same relative place.

It is where you go for the things the formatted view has no gesture for — a code fence's language, a table's column alignment, or a diagram you would rather type than draw.

Docked, auto-hidden, or closed

Every panel — the editor pane included — stands in one of three places:

Placement	Meaning
Docked	Open and holding its space, in its column or its dock tab
Auto-hidden	Off the layout, reduced to a tab on the window's edge
Closed	Not shown at all

Each panel's header carries a pin and a ✕:

• Pin unpins a docked panel, sending it to auto-hidden — its tab joins the strip on the nearest window edge. Pin it again from the flyout to dock it back.
• ✕ closes the panel. Reopen it from the view controls; it comes back docked.

Click an auto-hide tab and the panel slides out over the editor as a flyout, with its header, so you can pin it back or close it from there. Click the tab again, press Esc, or click elsewhere to dismiss it. Only one flyout is open at a time, and dismissing one is not a layout change — showing a panel briefly does not mean you moved it.

One rule you will notice: at least one editing surface is always docked. If the editor pane is the only docked one, its pin and ✕ are unavailable — dock the source panel first and you can close the editor pane. You are never left with nothing to type into.

Remembered across restarts

Your panel arrangement is saved and restored: a panel left docked comes back docked, one left auto-hidden comes back auto-hidden, one left closed stays closed. Two things are corrected on the way back in — a saved layout that would leave no editing surface docked comes back with the editor pane docked, and the folder panel returns only if the folder it browses does.

Narrow windows

Make the window narrow and panels step out of the way one at a time — the preview panel first, then the source panel, then the left dock — until the document keeps a usable width. Widen it again and each one comes back exactly as you had it. The editor is never crushed and never hidden behind a panel.

The command bar does the same with its icons: the insert and view groups collapse into single dropdowns only when the row would otherwise run off the edge, and expand back the moment there is room.

Neither is a change to your settings — it is the window fitting what you asked for into the space available.

Page view

The editor lays your document on a page-shaped sheet by default. See Pages, Printing and Export.

Next

• Pages, Printing and Export
• Diagrams