New in Release 5: the redesigned Composer described here, with one property panel, Screen Overlay and Screen Backdrop, and selecting several scenes or assets at once. Organisations move to Release 5 on their release weekend, from 9 October.
Not on Release 5 yet? Until your organisation moves over, use Meet the story designer (before Release 5).
The Composer, redesigned in Release 5, is where you build a story. You place media and text on your screens, organise them into scenes and decide how the story behaves. Every change is saved automatically.
The four areas
Top bar, from left to right:
The TSS logo takes you back to the Stories page.
The story title and its status: Draft, Temporary or Permanent. Click the title to open Story Settings.
Undo and Redo.
Media, Text and Triggers. Triggers only appears when your setup has triggers.
The people working in the story, and Share to invite someone.
Preview, with Start from this scene and Start from beginning.
Left rail: your screens and their scenes. Right-click a scene for actions such as copy, duplicate or set as screensaver. Use Screen options (⋯ next to a screen) to add a Screen Overlay or Screen Backdrop (new in Release 5), or to insert saved scenes.
Canvas: the selected scene on your screens. Drag assets to place them and use the corner handles to resize them. The tools, the zoom controls and the setup switcher sit on the canvas.
Property panel (new in Release 5): changes with what you select. With a scene selected, you see its transition, background and layers. Select an asset to see its own settings (see The property panel).
Moving around the canvas
Selection tool: press V.
Hand tool: press H, or hold the space bar while you drag.
Zoom: press + or -, or hold Ctrl (⌘ on Mac) and scroll to zoom where your pointer is.
Pan: scroll.
Layers
The Layers list in the property panel shows every asset in the selected scene, in stacking order. Drag an asset to change the order.
Hide layer (the eye icon): the asset disappears from the canvas, from Preview and from the screen. Hidden assets are left out when the story is published.
Lock: you can't move the asset by accident.
Hiding is not the same as turning off Visible on start in the Playback section. An asset with Visible on start off is still part of the story: it's hidden when the scene starts and can be shown later, for example with an on-click action.
Selecting several assets or scenes
Hold Shift and click assets on the canvas to select several. New in Release 5: to select several scenes, hold Shift or Ctrl (⌘ on Mac) and click them in the left rail, on the same screen. See Selecting multiple items (bulk actions).
Working together
Several people can work on the same story at once. The top bar shows who is in the story, and coloured borders on the canvas show what each person has selected. You can't change an asset while someone else has it selected. Click Share to invite someone (see Working together in TSS).
Tips
Assets that fall partly outside a screen look transparent, so you notice content your audience won't see.
Give assets clear names. TSS Control shows the names you use here, so presenters can find the right asset during a session.
Keyboard shortcuts save time: see Keyboard shortcuts.
New to TSS? Start with Your first story.