Screen capture and video

Record the screen into a video layer in the document, composite it with your design and motion, and add click-driven auto-zoom. (Capture menu)

Recording the screen

1. Choose Capture ▸ Record Screen… (⇧⌘R). The Layerz Canvas windows hide for the moment and a recording bar appears at the bottom of the screen. Until you pick a mode you can use the Dock and other apps freely to set up what you want to record; once you pick one, a highlight overlay shows the target (the rest darkened, the target outlined in the system accent colour). Hiding the windows can be turned off with Settings ▸ Recording ▸ Hide Layerz Canvas windows while recording.
2. The first time, the app asks for Screen Recording permission — allow it as prompted (you may need to reopen the app afterwards).
3. The bar has two groups of buttons. The Capture group on the left (Display / Window / Area) captures a still image and adds it as an image layer; the Record group on the right (the same icons with a red recording badge) records video. Pressing a button shows the target, and the button on the target reads Capture or Start recording. There are three targets:
   • Display — a whole display. With several monitors, each shows its own Start recording button for that display.
   • Window — hover a window to highlight it, with the app's icon and name shown (it is captured cleanly even when other windows overlap it). Windows hidden behind others can be picked from ⚙︎ menu ▸ Record Window (or Capture Window) (with several monitors, a Display submenu appears too).
   • Area — a rectangle appears in the middle of the screen; drag it to move or use the corner and edge handles to resize (drag on empty space to draw a new one; it can be grabbed the moment it appears). Only that area is recorded.
4. The ⚙︎ menu at the right of the bar toggles options (check marks; the gear fills in when any is on):
   • Record Microphone — narration. Turning it on for the first time asks for microphone permission (if you declined earlier, allow it in System Settings and try again).
   • Record System Audio — what the computer plays (app sounds and so on). The app's own sounds are excluded.
   • With both on, they are mixed into one audio track.
   • Auto-Zoom on Clicks — click-driven auto-zoom (on by default). Off records steadily without zooming; Capture ▸ Apply Auto-Zoom can add it any time later (click positions are still recorded, so the cursor highlight is unaffected).
   • Microphone, system audio, auto-zoom and the Area rectangle remember their last values for the next session (the mode is chosen fresh each time). The defaults for the same three options can also be set in Settings ▸ Recording.
5. Press Start recording on the target (or Return). A countdown in the middle of the screen (3 s by default; none / 3 / 5 / 10 s in Settings ▸ Recording) runs, then recording begins (no save dialog — it records to a temporary file). The bar and the app's windows are not part of the recording. Capture grabs the image right there and adds it to the document as an image layer ("Screenshot"), and the Layerz Canvas window comes back.
   • To give up, press × at the left of the bar or Esc.
6. While recording, a small status bar stays at the bottom (● Recording · elapsed time · Stop). Stop adds the recording to the document as a video layer and brings the Layerz Canvas window back for editing. The temporary file is removed.

Click-driven auto-zoom maps exactly to the chosen source (whole display, window or area).

Recorded audio is part of the clip and is mixed into the timeline's video export (Export Video). Overlapping video clips mix; only the trimmed and placed ranges are heard. (Hidden layers are muted.)

Preview while editing: playing the timeline plays the video clips' audio in sync with the playhead (placement, trims and playback speed applied). Pausing stops it.

Auto-zoom

• Click positions are recorded along with the video.
• With Auto-Zoom on clicks on in the recording bar, auto-zoom keyframes that zoom smoothly toward each click and back are generated when the recording ends. Off skips them.
• Auto-zoom works relative to the video box, so the focus stays put when you resize the clip later.
• Clicks also show a pulse highlight and a cursor-tracking ring.
• Not happy with it? Capture ▸ Apply Auto-Zoom regenerates it for the selected clip.
• Set Video ▸ Zoom Strength (1–6×) in the inspector, then run Apply Auto-Zoom to use that magnification. The default magnification and cursor highlight for new clips are set in Settings ▸ Recording ▸ Clips.
• A recording is added as a frame ("Recording"): a transparent nested frame the size of the video with the video layer inside, clipping anything outside its box. Auto-zoom is made of Width / Height / Position keyframes on the video layer itself, so the parts that grow past the frame are hidden and only the zoomed picture inside the original area shows.
  • Right after adding, the frame is selected, so moving or resizing it carries the video and its keyframes along (aspect locked by default).
  • Editing the keyframes: double-click the frame, or expand it in the layer panel and pick the video layer, and its keyframes appear on the timeline. Move or delete them like any keyframe, and adjust the zoom and position with the inspector's Size / Position.
  • If you don't want the clipping, select the frame and Ungroup (⇧⌘G); the zoomed video shows as is.
• Clicks near the screen edges never push the zoomed picture outside the original area — the movement is clamped so the zoomed video always fills the frame.
• Capture ▸ Apply Auto-Zoom creates the layer keyframes above when the selected video sits inside a frame (or mask); for a video placed without clipping (an imported file, say) it creates Zoom / Pan X / Pan Y tracks instead (the picture zooms and pans inside the video box; nothing outside the box is revealed).
• Resizing a frame or group scales the position and size keyframes of the animated layers inside it proportionally, so the animation plays the same in the new size.

Importing images, video, SVG and sound

• Capture ▸ Import Image… adds an image file as an image layer (at its original pixel size).
• SVG files come in as editable vector layers, not pixels (pick an .svg in Import Image…, or drop one from the Finder). Rectangles, circles and ellipses stay shapes; other shapes, and anything rotated or skewed, become paths; <g> becomes a group. Fills, strokes, gradients, opacity, <style> classes, inline styles, <use>, embedded data-URI images and text are read. Clip paths, masks, filters and patterns are ignored (their content still imports). Artwork larger than the artboard is scaled down to fit like an image, and several shapes arrive as one selected group.
• Capture ▸ Import Video… adds a video file as a video layer.
• Capture ▸ Import Audio… adds a sound file (MP3, M4A, WAV, AIFF…) as an audio layer. Nothing is drawn on the canvas; the clip is placed on the timeline starting at the playhead (the timeline grows if needed). Dropping a sound file from the Finder onto the canvas does the same.
• Drag and drop: image and video files from the Finder, and images dragged from other apps (Safari, Preview, Photos, Mail…), become layers when dropped on the canvas.
  • A highlight border shows while dragging over the canvas; the layer lands where you drop it (nudged to stay inside the artboard).
  • The artboard under the pointer is the target (else the active one). Video prepares the timeline so it can play.
  • Several files dropped at once are placed with a slight offset each.
• Paste (⌘V): images and video on the clipboard (copied from other apps too) are added to the centre of the active artboard. SVG markup (Figma's *Copy as SVG*, Illustrator, Sketch, text from a code editor) becomes vector layers the same way, and lands inside a selected group or frame.
• Layers added from files are named after the file name.
• Imported images and video move, resize, rotate and animate like any shape. Image and video layers (imported, pasted, captured or recorded) are added with the aspect lock on, so resizing keeps their proportions (unlock with the padlock in the inspector's Size row).

Working with video layers

• Video layers move, resize, rotate and animate like other shapes.
• Scrubbing or playing the timeline shows the video frame at that time composited with the design.
• Selecting a video layer shows a Video section in the inspector:
  • Duration — the source clip's length (read-only).
  • Clip Start — where the clip begins on the timeline. Change it to place several clips one after another. The clip is visible only between Clip Start and Clip Start + (Trim Out − Trim In).
  • Trim In — the in point that cuts the start of the clip (the clip time that plays when the clip starts).
  • Trim Out — the out point that cuts the end. (A 15-second video with In = 5 and Out = 10 plays for 5 seconds.)
  • Cursor Highlight — toggles the click highlight overlay (enabled when click metadata exists).
• Timeline clip bar: video layers show as a clip bar on their track.
  • Drag the middle to move the clip (change its start).
  • Drag the left / right ends (handles) to trim the start / end. Shrinking from the left keeps the content in place and cuts only the beginning.
  • Capture ▸ Split Clip at Playhead splits the clip in two at the playhead (when the playhead is inside it). Keyframes are divided between the two clips at the split point.
• Changing Trim In or moving the clip moves its keyframes (auto-zoom and others) with it, so they stay in sync with the picture.
• Auto-zoom is generated for the current trim range, so set the trims first and then run Capture ▸ Apply Auto-Zoom for exact timing. The keyframes can be moved or deleted on the timeline like any other.
• File ▸ Export Video… writes an MP4 with design, recording and auto-zoom combined. See Export.

Imported images and video are stored inside the .lcanvas document, so the file opens anywhere you move it (assets are unpacked to a working copy on open). Assets no longer used by any layer are cleaned out on save so files don't grow needlessly (undoing a deletion brings them back).