Working with Layouts
A layout is the page Vector shows: its tiles, where each one is and which scope each shows.
What a Layout Is
Section titled “What a Layout Is”A layout is a name, a design-canvas pixel size and an ordered list of boxes.
A layout scales to any screen shape without rearranging.
The canvas sets the output pixel size. You choose the aspect, and the resolution follows with a fixed 1920 px long edge and even counts.
A fresh layout starts at 1920x1080, and so do the four shipped pages.
The Four Shipped Layouts
Section titled “The Four Shipped Layouts”- Colorist — six tiles: HML Balance, Preview and the 3D color cube above waveform, vectorscope and CIE plot.
- DIT — six tiles: false color, skin tone and the neutral finder beside a large Preview, with waveform and vectorscope below.
- QC — eleven tiles: picture, false color and gamut over waveform, RGB parade and the flicker heatmap, then Min / Max, goniometer, error log, vectorscope and an audio strip.
- Broadcast — seven tiles: Preview, timecode and surround meters over waveform and vectorscope, with the goniometer and an audio strip.
Every box on all four pages is bound to slot 1, and every page has five slots whatever its tile count. See Layout Designer to build a page of your own, and Working with Scopes for the tile kinds.
Switching Pages
Section titled “Switching Pages”Menu → Layout lists the shipped pages first, then custom ones under Custom Layouts:.
A double click in Manage Custom Layouts loads that layout and closes the window.
The web control API’s POST /api/layout takes a name field, and answers Layout not found when the name resolves to nothing.
Saving, Importing and Exporting
Section titled “Saving, Importing and Exporting”Vector autosaves layouts: a drag that settles is saved on its own.
Save in the designer’s Layout section requests the save.
On a shipped page it opens Save Layout As, pre-filled with {name} copy.
Saving over an existing custom name replaces that page.
A built-in name is refused.
Refusals appear in red at the top of the Manage Custom Layouts window: Cannot delete built-in layout, A layout with this name already exists, Cannot import over built-in layout name; please rename the layout. and Invalid layout JSON: with the reason.
Manage Custom Layouts is the list, with New…, Import…, Export…, Load and Delete.
The exported file is the whole layout object: name, canvas_width, canvas_height and boxes, suggested as {name}.json.
Menu → File → Import Third-Party Layout… converts a Nobe OmniScope export. The new layout takes the file stem as its name, and the dialog filters to Third-Party Layout over json.
Renaming and Deleting
Section titled “Renaming and Deleting”The web control API’s PATCH /api/layouts/designer/rename renames a page, refusing a built-in name or one already taken. In the window, Save As under the new name and delete the old row.
In Manage Custom Layouts, Delete is disabled for the page you are on. The designer offers it for a custom page.
Where Layout Data Lives
Section titled “Where Layout Data Lives”A page is a row, not a file.
Layouts live in Vector’s database, in its layouts table, stored as JSON.
The configuration directory has fetch-vector.db and sources.json, which remembers the Sources Palette, the slot windows and other settings.
Installation & First Run gives that directory on each platform.
How the Same Page Can Be Drawn Two Ways
Section titled “How the Same Page Can Be Drawn Two Ways”A page can be drawn without the GPU, and it may differ slightly, inside the boxes the GPU produced and nowhere else. Installation & First Run has the compositor flag.