Output

This page is about actually sending things to the audience screen. If the window layout is new to you, read The main window first.

Choosing a screen and sending it out are two different things

In the status bar at the bottom of the window, click the field next to the monitor icon and the screen list opens upward. Each row shows the screen name and its resolution, and the current target has a ● in front of it.

Choosing alone sends nothing out

What you choose here only decides where output will go. To actually send something out, press Output under the preview.

What you choose survives quitting and reopening the app.

You can choose a screen that is not plugged in

The dimmed rows marked not connected can be chosen too. The only thing blocked is output. Choose one in advance and the app returns to that screen the moment you plug the cable in; until then, cards and the preview are drawn at that screen’s aspect ratio.

A screen that has been connected even once stays in the list after it is unplugged — up to five of them. The most recently used come first.

If an external screen is connected when you first launch, the app takes it as the target. If there is no external screen, nothing is chosen — output never falls back to the laptop screen on its own.

Plug an external screen in later and output moves to it — but only if you were on a virtual screen at the time. A virtual screen is a size to build against, not a place anything goes out to, so once a real screen arrives that is where you meant to send it. A real screen you picked yourself is never taken away from you, even while it is unplugged: you chose it, and it comes back the moment you plug it in.

Where the sound goes

On the same status bar, just right of the screen picker, there is a speaker icon and one more box. This is where you choose which device the sound goes to.

The top row is System default. The device it is following right now is written alongside it, so it reads like System default · MacBook Pro Speakers. Pick this row and it follows the Mac’s own sound setting — connect Bluetooth earphones mid-show and the sound moves with them.

Below that are the devices attached right now. Pick one and it keeps using that device even when the Mac’s default changes.

If the device you picked goes away

It stays in the list as Not connected, so you can still see what you had chosen, and meanwhile the sound goes out on the system default. Losing the sound entirely on stage seemed worse.

Narrow the window and this and the screen picker split the space between them, shortening the names. Even at the narrowest the speaker icon stays, and clicking it opens the list.

YouTube streaming does not follow this

YouTube’s web view makes its own sound and does not pass through this picker. Downloaded YouTube and everything else does follow it.

Sending out and stopping

One blue pill button in the control row under the preview turns it on and off.

Now	Button	Right of the status bar
Off	Output	No output
Going out	Stop Output	slide name (Presenting fullscreen if it has none)

There are three ways back out.

Way	When you use it
⌘. in the main window	Normally. Fastest
Stop Output in the control row	When you are working with the mouse
The round ✕ at the top right that appears when you move the mouse over the output screen	The case below

Esc on its own does not stop output

Esc is the key you press to undo something, so it is the key your hand reaches for by accident. Taking the screen down is not something you can undo — while it comes back, the room sees black. So it takes two fingers: ⌘.. Press Esc during output and LayerCue tells you which key to use.

If you chose the laptop screen and sent output to it

Your control screen is covered completely. The output window does not take focus, so ⌘. pressed on that screen does nothing. Move the mouse and a ✕ appears at the top right for 2.2 seconds — press it.

If you press Output while the screen you chose is not plugged in, no window opens and you get only the message No external screen is connected. That is deliberate, so your control screen is never covered.

Output screen resolution

Settings › Stage › Set output display to 1:1 is on by default. When it is on, the app actually changes that monitor’s system resolution.

Turn it off on gear that is not yours

If the projector or monitor is borrowed from the venue, turning this switch off is the safer choice. The main screen is never touched, whatever happens. The resolution is put back when you quit the app (and if the app dies suddenly, logging in again puts it back).

The resolution does not go back the moment you turn the switch off. It goes back when you choose the output screen again · when a new screen is connected · when you quit the app.

Ways to send something out

What you want	How
Send it as it stands	Click once on a slide card thumbnail · right-click → Present · Enter
Start it again from the beginning	Double-click the thumbnail
Hold it on screen without playing	To Screen in Slide settings on the right
Move to the next or previous one	← → ↑ ↓ · Home End · PageUp PageDown
Look around without sending anything out	Option + arrow keys

Pressing something that is already going out does nothing

This keeps the video you are watching from rewinding to the start. To rewind, double-click.

To Screen puts the point you set on the progress bar in Slide settings on the right onto the screen and holds it there (it does not play). It cues again every time you press it, so you can fix the point and send it once more. If output is off, this button opens the output window as well.

Layers — one background · one foreground · five overlays

What goes out is not one screen but seven layers. From the bottom up they stack like this.

Overlay 1         (top)
Overlay 2
Overlay 3
Overlay 4
Overlay 5
Foreground
Background        (bottom)

Overlay numbers are heights, not an order

1 is at the top, 5 sits directly above the foreground. The numbers cannot be changed.

Setting the layer on each slide

What you want	How
Background ↔ foreground	Click the layer chip at the top right of the card
Move it to an overlay	Press and hold that chip (after that, each click goes 1 → 2 → … → 5 → 1)
Back to the foreground	In overlay mode, press and hold the chip again
Choose from a menu	Right-click the card → Layer or Overlay

Press the chip while several cards are selected and the layer changes for all of them at once.

What each layer can hold

Layer	What it can hold
Background	Images · videos · text slides (downloaded YouTube included)
Foreground	Everything
Overlays 1–5	Text · images · videos · YouTube

YouTube uses one overlay slot at a time

It is because only one web view is used. Start YouTube on another slot and the first one comes down. When YouTube hands the slot to YouTube it does not cross over — it just switches.

Background is still off limits to streaming. Fetch it with Download and switch to Downloaded, and the background works too. Web pages still go out on the foreground only.

A music file slide has nothing to draw, so it goes on no layer at all and goes out as sound only.

Setting a slide to background splits it in two

Only the video or image underneath drops to the background layer; the text boxes and shapes laid on top stay on the foreground. Sending the whole thing down would take the captions you laid on top with it.

The moment you set it to background, that slide’s sound closes to 0%, and putting it back on the foreground returns it to 100%. A value you changed by hand after that is left alone.

The rules for the five overlay slots

• Put something else in the same slot and the one before it is replaced (it crossfades over)
• Different slots stay stacked as they are
• The same slide cannot be in two slots at once

Overlays do not turn off when you press them again

In a program where a click is output, this is blocked so nothing disappears by mistake. The only ways down are the X next to the layer chip and F4.

Giving the layers names

In Settings › Overlay names, write a name for each of the five slots (up to 12 characters). Card chips, menus, stage chips and playlist settings all speak with that name. The number always comes in front, so it looks like 1 Logo. It is there so you can find a layer by name instead of number when you are in a hurry.

What is going out right now

Layer chips stack vertically to the right of the preview. At the top is a wide X (Clear All), below it the five overlay slots 1–5, then the foreground F and the background B.

All seven are always there. An empty slot is an outline; a slot that is going out fills with color. That way the column answers two questions at once — what is up, and where there is room. The round ✕ beside a chip only appears when there is something on that layer to take down.

When something is going out, the chip fills with color and a green border appears around the preview. A background on its own, or an overlay on its own, is going out all the same.

Press a layer chip and a white ring appears around it, and the control row below (progress bar · ▶/⏸ · speed · mute · volume) then works on that layer. Put something with a running clock on it — a video or music — and that layer is selected on its own.

Values you touch in the control row are not saved

Volume and speed in the control row change only for that moment. Cue it again next time and it is back where it was. To save them into the slide, work in Slide settings on the right (see step 4 of Your first show).

Taking things down

What you want	Where	Shortcut
Take everything down	The wide X at the top of the layer chips (Clear All) · the red stop button in the control row	F1 (⌘1)
Take down the foreground only	The X next to the F chip	F2 (⌘2)
Take down the background only	The X next to the B chip	F3 (⌘3)
All five overlay slots	—	F4 (⌘4)
Take down one layer only	The small X next to that chip (Clear this layer)	—

Clear All takes each layer down on its own timing — the foreground on that list’s Fade out, the background on Background fade, overlays on Overlay fade. The X that takes down the background only, and F3, are fixed at 0.5 seconds.

Layers come back as they were when you stop output and start it again

What you put on stage — the background and overlays — is not erased when you stop output.

Fades — where you set them

There are four values, and they live in two different places.

Value	Where	Default	What
Crossfade	Playlist settings	0.8s	Overlap when switching slides
Fade out	Playlist settings	0.8s	Time to fade when stopping
Background fade	Settings › Stage	0.5s	How long a background change takes
Overlay fade	Settings › Stage	0.3s	How long overlays take to appear and leave

The first two live separately in each playlist. Change them with the gear button at the right end of the list header, or by right-clicking the sidebar row → Playlist settings. 0–5 seconds, in steps of 0.1.

The Settings window has the same names

Crossfade · Fade out under Settings › Stage are the Defaults for new playlists. They are the ones with Existing playlists keep their own value. written under the row. To change the list you are using today, you have to open Playlist settings.

The other two are not defaults for new lists; they apply to the whole app right away. Use Background fade when the background alone changes slowly and the layers look out of step, and set Overlay fade to 0 when you want a name caption to appear at once.

Layer for this list — sending everything on one layer

Pick a chip in Playlist settings › Layer for this list and every slide in that list goes out on that layer. Per slide plus the seven layers, laid out in stacking order — Overlays 1–5, Foreground, Background.

The layer set on each slide is not erased

It sleeps, and going back to Per slide brings it back as it was. A slide that cannot go on that layer goes out on the foreground even when you force it, and says so once: This slide can’t go on that layer — showing it as the foreground.

Anything that is no longer an overlay because you changed the forced layer goes down with a fade, and you are told Cleared N overlay(s).

Overlay auto-dismiss

Raise the Playlist settings › Auto-dismiss slider (0–120 seconds) and this list’s overlays take themselves down after that long. At 0 it reads Off and they stay until you take them down yourself.

When the clock starts

It starts not the moment you turn it on but the moment it actually becomes visible on screen (video waits for the first frame). An overlay that is already up keeps the time it took when it went on, even if you change the setting afterwards.

The starting value for lists you create from now on is at the bottom of Settings › Stage. Here too: Existing playlists keep their own value.

Locking editing while output is on

Settings › Stage › Lock editing while live is off by default. Leave it on and editing locks the moment output starts, and Live — editing locked (unlock in the status bar) appears. When you stop output, what the app locked the app unlocks.

You can open and close it by hand at any time with the lock at the right of the status bar (Lock editing / Unlock editing).

Fine while locked	Blocked while locked
Choosing slides · sending them out · working the preview	Adding slides · deleting · duplicating · pasting
Copying · changing the volume	Reordering · splitting · merging · setting layers
Making, renaming and deleting playlists and folders	Saving a text box (text slide editing)

Try a blocked action and you get only Editing is locked while presenting, and nothing happens.

When you send YouTube out

Start output and the view you were watching moves to the stage as it is. Nothing reloads, so it neither stutters nor jumps back to the start.

What stays in the app is a translucent cover reading Presenting fullscreen · ⌘. to return. While YouTube is going out, that cover carries Quality — and Chapters, if the video has any.

Open the Chapters list and jump straight to any chapter by name, or use the two buttons beneath it to step back and forward. Going back lands on the start of the chapter you are in first, so one press replays it.

Nothing is broken

YouTube uses a single web view. That one view has crossed over to the stage, so only the cover is left inside the app. It stops the same video from running twice and doubling the sound, and it appears only for YouTube.

YouTube’s own controls do not go on stage

The screen going out carries no YouTube progress bar, title, channel picture, share button or YouTube mark. The More videos grid at the end of a video and the suggested thumbnails on pause do not appear either. The preview in slide settings is the same.

Use the app’s controls instead — the progress bar, play, time and chapters are right below the preview.

The first 0.1 second may still show them

That is the sliver before YouTube’s own screen settles after you load a video. After that they stay away.

Seeing and changing the quality

In the middle of the cover you get Quality 1080p — the value actually going out. YouTube raises and lowers it by itself according to your connection and the size of the picture, so this is the current value, not a setting.

Press Auto next to it and only the qualities that video actually has are listed (2160p · 1440p · 1080p · 720p · 480p · 360p · Auto). Pick one and it changes right away, and the number to the left follows.

Raise it once, just after it goes up

YouTube opens at a low quality and works its way up. Raise it here the moment the video is on stage and it holds that value from then on.

Seeking puts it back on automatic

Skip or rewind inside the video and YouTube decides the quality again for itself. Pick it once more then.

Trimming another video while one is out

While YouTube is on stage you can still open a different YouTube in Slide settings on the right and set its in and out points. That one stays silent — it is muted automatically so it cannot double up with the stage.

When there are several videos

When more than three videos are running at the same time, Several videos are playing — playback may stutter appears with the overlay slot number after it. You are told once for each step past the line.

Check it in rehearsal

If your setup stacks several overlay videos over a background video, run that scene once for real before the event. Stutter differs from machine to machine.

Shortcuts

Key	What it does
F1 (⌘1)	Clear All — takes the foreground, background and overlays all down
F2 (⌘2)	Take down the foreground only (rides the Fade out)
F3 (⌘3)	Take down the background only (0.5s)
F4 (⌘4)	Take down all five overlay slots

The F keys often don’t reach the app on a Mac

macOS claims F1 and F2 for screen brightness. Use the ⌘ combinations in brackets — ⌘1 · ⌘2 · ⌘3 · ⌘4. That is Command, not Control. The X next to each layer chip does the same thing, and it always works.

| ⌘. | Stop Output | | Enter | Present the slide under the cursor | | ← → ↑ ↓ | Move along and send that slide out right away | | Home End | To the very first · the very last (output goes with it) | | PageUp PageDown | Three rows back and forward (output goes with it) | | Option + arrow keys | Move the cursor without sending anything out | | Shift + arrow keys | Widen the selection without sending anything out |

Esc handles whatever it catches first

The order is: editor → cancel a slide drag → clear the selection. Output is not on that list — see above.