A Tour of the UI

Lightbridge’s main window is a grid of panels — every tool you’ll use lives in one. The chain editor, the audio meters, the BPM section, the palette, the modulation panel, the parameter panel, everything. Panels can be rearranged, docked to a different column, popped out to a separate window, or hidden entirely. The goal is that you set it up once to match your workflow and never fight the interface during a performance.

The default layout

When you open Lightbridge for the first time, you see three columns of panels with the two canvases fixed at the top of the centre:

Left column — Audio Meters, Reactivity Controls, BPM Section.
Centre column — preview + live canvases and the output mode bar at the top (fixed), then Set Tab Bar, Chain Editor, and Parameter Panel stacked below.
Right column — Palette, Effects Palette, Sources Palette.

This is a starting point. Any panel can be moved into any column, popped out, or hidden.

Preview and live at the top

The two canvases at the top of the window are the most important thing to understand first:

The preview canvas is the one you see. You’re always editing what’s on preview.
The live canvas is the one the audience sees, on the projector or output display.

In auto mode, every edit mirrors from preview to live instantly — they show the same thing. In hold mode , live stops accepting your edits and keeps running the look it was already playing — modulations, audio reactivity, and beat sync all keep going untouched. You can safely build the next look in preview and push it when you’re ready. The toggle is in the top toolbar. During a gig, hold mode is the difference between seamless transitions and your audience watching you drag sliders. See Output Visuals for the full story.

The chain editor

The chain editor sits below the canvases in the centre column. It’s a horizontal strip where you drag sources and effects into position, left to right. The left end runs first; the right end runs last. Reordering a node is a drag; deleting is a right-click away. Click any node to select it — its parameters appear in the parameter panel directly below.

See The Chain Model for the full picture of how sources, effects, and order interact.

The parameter panel

The parameter panel sits directly below the chain editor in the centre column and shows every parameter of whichever node is selected in the chain. Scale, rotation, colour, intensity, speed — whatever the source or effect exposes. Right-click any slider to reveal its modulation, palette, or action-button options; drag the ≡ icon on the slider to drag-bind it to a controller panel element.

See Parameters for how parameters work, what you can do with them, and how layered control resolves.

Dockable panels

Every panel in Lightbridge is detachable. The operations:

Move a panel between columns — drag its header to the column you want.
Pop out to a separate window — drag its header to the top of the screen or use the panel’s menu. Popped-out panels live in their own small windows you can move to a second monitor.
Dock it back — drag a popped-out panel back to any column, or click the dock button on the panel.
Hide it — use the View menu to toggle any panel on or off.
Reorder within a column — drag a panel up or down to change its position.

The layout is saved per show. Build a layout that fits your workflow, save your show, and next time you open it everything is exactly where you left it.

The menu bar has the usual top-level entries:

File — new show, open, save, recent shows, import/export.
Edit — undo/redo, copy/paste, preferences.
View — show/hide panels, zoom levels, dev tools.
Chain — add sources and effects, clear chain, save as preset.
Audio — pick your input device, open the reactivity controls.
Controller — create a new custom controller panel, list attached devices.
Output — open/close the output window, pick a display.
Performance — switch sets, toggle hold mode, trigger action buttons.
Help — documentation, keyboard shortcuts, about.

Most menu actions have keyboard shortcuts — check the menu entries to learn them, or open the shortcut overview from Help → Keyboard Shortcuts.

Where to go from here

The Chain Model — how sources and effects combine into a single image.
Parameters — everything you can do with a parameter slider.
Performing Live — the gig workflow: preview, live, hold mode, action buttons.