Hello and welcome to the articy:draft X Basics tutorial series. In this lesson we will take a look at articy’s UI and workspace layout.
Welcome Screen
When starting articy:draft the Welcome screen is the first thing we see. In the top left corner we have the round Main Menu button (1). Currently it shows only a couple of options, there will be more once we open a project. Next to the main menu the master toolbar is located (2). We will go through the available options, once we open a project.
The option to note in the main menu is the license management, as it is only available when no project is loaded. Here you can view, activate, or deactivate your license.
In the top right corner we have the object counter, displaying in detail how many objects are currently used for the active project. This counter and the info window at the bottom is only visible when using articy:draft X Free, with the full version you have unlimited objects, therefore no need for a counter.
Project Selector
In the center of the screen the Project Selector is located. If you haven’t installed the demo project package yet, you can do so by using the button below the project list (The button disappears once the demo project package was installed).
Double click a project tile to open the project. Or right-click for some additional options. Removing the project from the list (1) just removes it from the project selector but will keep all local files. Delete project (2) removes the project entirely, handle with caution! Clone project (3) creates a duplicate of the current project state to a different folder. Open containing folder (4) opens the Explorer pointing to the project location.
If you have removed a project from the list, or if you have a project that you have never opened with this articy version, you can select “Open from file” (1) to locate the project and open it. In case the project was created with an older articy:draft version, it will be automatically converted for use with the current version. But please note that you will no longer be able to open it with the older version once converted, so maybe create a backup first, just to be on the safe side.
Of course, you can also create a new project in the Welcome Screen with the corresponding button (2).
Creating a new project
Enter the desired project name (1), if you like you can also add a detail name (2) and a cover image (3). These can always be added or edited later as well. You can set your primary project language at this state (4), that means the main content creation language for the project. This is also something that can be edited via the project settings later.
If you have an existing project from where you want to take over templates, you can check this here (5).
Last but not least choose name and location for your project folder (6) and click Finish (7) to create the new project.
Single and Multi User
You might wonder what Server, User, and Projects above the project selector do. With a single-user license you can ignore these, articy will always start with the project selection in the welcome screen. However, if you also have a multi-user license you can use the back button to go to server and user selection to log into a multi-user project. Please see the dedicated Multi-user lessons for more info.
articy:draft X workspace layout
This series will be mainly based on the Dracula demo project, but of course you can also follow along with a different or entirely new project.
If you open a project for the first time you will land on the so called Jumpstart page.
When coming back to the project later, you will automatically start in the area where you left the application. You can always come back to the Jumpstart page with the Home button in the top left.
From the Jumpstart page you can quickly jump to the different sections of articy:draft. Basically every entry you can see has its own lesson covering the topic in detail. I’d like to mention the entry Help, which leads to the new in-app Help Center. It offers the same information as the Help Center on our website, but can be accessed directly inside the software, without the need to switch over to a browser.
Let’s go to the Flow now, to go over the general UI elements and workspace layout.
The main menu now offers a lot more options, like Exports and Imports, a list of Support resources, or the option to reset the layout. We will see when that makes sense in a short while.
At the bottom of the main menu you can set articy’s UI language. This is independent from the primary content language, for example let’s say the main content creation language is English, but as a native German speaker I might prefer to set my UI language to German to make it easier to find my way around.
In the master toolbar you get quick access to create a new window (1), a save button (2) and undo-redo (3). Then there is the Plugin Manager (4), giving you an overview over the installed plugins on your system, allowing you to activate or deactivate plugins as desired, or to install additional plugins. You can find a more in-depth look in the Plugins lesson. The notification window (5) informs you about important news, for example new software versions ready for download and installation. The last button on the main toolbar opens a list of help resources (6), like this series, additional tutorials that can be found on the web page, the Help Center, and more.
What will also be shown in the master toolbar, is the Auto-save countdown timer.
Articy’s general layout resembles a file explorer, with tabbed browsing and navigation. If you need extra space or want to structure the content you see, you can create extra windows, by clicking the New window icon (1) in the master toolbar. Or you can create new tabs, by clicking the plus icon (2) located in the top left corner of a window.
Another way of organizing your workspace is to add additional view panes. You can do this by positioning the mouse cursor at the edge of the screen on any side. When the little icon with the two arrows appears, click, hold and drag. With the same technique you can resize panes as well.
If you go overboard here, you can use the aforementioned Reset layout from the main menu to go back to the standard view.
Unless you are on the Jumpstart page, each window or pane is divided into two areas – the navigator on the left (1) and the content area on the right (2).
In the Navigator you can find all data stored in a hierarchical object structure. You can expand or collapse entries just like in a Windows explorer. Orange colored entries are system folders (1), blue ones are user created (2), like the character and items folders under Entities. You can resize the Navigator in width, by clicking and dragging the boundary between Navigator and content area (3).
You can even collapse the Navigator entirely. Clicking on the then appearing drag-out bar will open the Navigator to the width it had before being collapsed.
The content area and its toolbar are context-sensitive and may display different things dependent on what kind of content you are viewing. The flow view offers different tools, than entities, or the location editor. This will be explained in detail in the corresponding lessons.
On the top right we have the view selector. This can be used to display the content in different ways, like lists or tiles, or the Localization view. These options are also context sensitive, not all areas share the same view options.
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