Studio Overview

The Studio is where a lesson becomes a learner experience.

If you are new to it, the fastest way to feel comfortable is to understand the four main areas you will use repeatedly:

1. The scene panel
2. The canvas
3. The widget library
4. The properties panel

The scene panel and widget library both live in the left panel, which has three tabs under its Build heading: Scenes, Layouts, and Widgets. Click a tab to switch what the panel shows. The panel sits beside the canvas rather than over it, so you can drag scenes or widgets straight onto your work. Need more room? Click the collapse button in the panel's top-right corner, beside Build, click the tab you're already on, or press ⌘ \\ (Ctrl on Windows and Chromebooks), and the panel folds down to a slim strip. The expand button at the top of the strip brings it back on the tab you last used; click any tab icon below it to bring it back on that tab instead. Berdee remembers whether you left it open or closed.

Starting a brand-new lesson

Start from scratch in the New lesson dialog drops you straight here, on an empty canvas with the Classic palette and a scene ready to build on. Nothing else is asked of you first: the lesson is called Untitled lesson, and the name, description, grades, subjects, and palette are all things you set later from the ⋯ menu when you know what the lesson is. You can also start from a template (starter scenes with a matching visual theme) in one click. See Creating a Lesson. If an empty lesson reaches the studio without a look ever having been chosen — one imported from a share code, say — the studio asks the first time you open it. A lesson the Assistant built for you arrives already styled in one of the house themes, so it skips the question; switch its theme any time from ⋯ → Settings. Full guide: Themes and Palettes

Berdee also keeps out of your way on a lesson you have not started: the publishing checks stay quiet until you place your first widget, and tips hold back while you are typing or have a panel open.

On a tablet or phone

The studio is built for a computer with a mouse or trackpad. You can open it on an iPad or a phone to make a quick fix, but dragging and resizing widgets is hard with touch alone. When you open the studio on a device without a mouse or trackpad, a note at the top says so; click Got it and it won't show again on that device. An iPad with a trackpad keyboard counts as a computer here.

This is only about building lessons. Your students can play lessons on a phone, tablet or computer: see Student experience and attempts.

Scene panel

The scene panel is where you organize the learner flow. Open it from the Scenes tab at the top of the left panel.

You can:

• Select the scene you want to work on
• Add scenes
• Give a scene a shared backdrop from its ⋯ menu (the layouts themselves live in their own Layouts tab in the left panel — see Layouts)
• Rename scenes
• Drag scenes up or down to reorder them
• Delete scenes when they are no longer needed

This panel is about structure. When you want to change the order or purpose of learner steps, start here.

More detail: Scene Management

For the whole lesson's branching at once — every scene and every path between them, on one editable map — use ← Lesson graph at the top left of the studio: The Lesson Graph

Canvas

The canvas is the learner-facing stage for the active scene.

Use it to:

• Place widgets
• Size and move them
• Create visual hierarchy
• See how a scene reads at a glance

The canvas is most effective when each scene has one clear goal. If the canvas starts to feel crowded or confusing, that usually means the scene should be simplified or split.

Zoom and pan

A scene opens showing the whole slide — the view your students get. Zoom in when you need to place something exactly: the − / % / + / Fit controls sit in the bottom-right corner of the canvas, ⌘ +, ⌘ −, and ⌘ 0 (Ctrl on Windows and Chromebooks) do the same from the keyboard, and holding Space while you drag moves the canvas around. Full guide: Moving Around the Canvas

Drop a picture straight on

You do not have to go through the media library to add an image. Drag a file from your desktop onto the canvas, or copy a picture anywhere and press ⌘ V — Berdee uploads it, places it where you dropped it at the picture's own shape, and files it in your library for reuse. See Add an image by dropping or pasting it

Scene info strip

Just above the canvas, a thin gray line summarizes the active scene at a glance:

Scene Name • N Points • Automatically flows to <next scene>

What you see here:

• Scene name — the current scene's name, so you always know where you are
• Points — the total points across all scorable widgets on the scene (shown as 0 Points if nothing on the scene is graded yet)
• Flow — what happens when the student gets the scene right, in plain language: Manual Scene Flow, Automatically flows to <scene>, or Flow decided by a router

Both halves of that last part are links, and they go to different places:

• The destination name — click it to jump straight to that scene, so you can follow a flow you have set up without leaving the canvas.
• The phrase itself — "Automatically flows to", "Manual Scene Flow", "Flow decided by a router" — opens the Lesson Graph, the map of every scene and every path between them. The strip is the only place in the editor that names the flow this scene belongs to, so it is also the shortest way to go and look at it. It stays quiet until you hover or tab to it, so the line still reads as one sentence.

If a scene is set to move on to the next scene but there is no next scene yet, the strip shows a + Add next scene button instead of a destination — click it to create the next scene and continue building. The left panel switches to Lesson Widgets so you can start filling the new scene. See Scene Progression for details.

You change what this strip says by editing the scene's Scene Progression in the properties panel.

Widget library

The widget library is where you choose what learners can see, hear, or do. All of it lives in one panel: Lesson Widgets — the Widgets tab of the left panel, beside Scenes and Layouts. It holds:

• The basics — buttons, text, containers, shapes, plus Heading, Subheading and Body text presets that arrive already sized for the job
• Questions and hands-on tasks — text fields, multiple choice, dropdowns, checkboxes, hotspots, find in picture, matching, sorting, drag-and-drop, flashcards, conveyor belt, word search
• Media — images, audio, video, text-to-speech
• Pacing and progress — timers, score readouts, spin wheels

Open Lesson Widgets and start typing — the search box is already focused and filters every widget instantly. Search reads what each widget is _for_ as well as its name, so typing "drag" finds Drop Bucket. Leave the box empty to browse instead: the widgets you reach for most are grouped under Most Common, with Everything Else below, both alphabetical. Hover or tab to any tile and a card tells you in one sentence what students do with it.

You can add widgets such as:

• Text
• Images
• Questions
• Media
• Timers
• Score displays
• Sorting and matching interactions

Choose widgets based on the learning task, not on novelty. Start with the simplest tool that supports the thinking you want.

More detail: Widgets and Widget Settings

The pill above a selected widget

Select a widget and a small pill floats above it. ⚡ Behaviors opens the guided behaviors flow — ready-made ideas like "Make this a Next button" or "Celebrate the right answer", written out as plain sentences before you add them. On widgets with deeper setup, ⚙ Configure sits beside it — answers and scoring for graded widgets like multiple choice and flashcards, the source for audio and video, the shape library for a shape, and the length of a timer or the scope of a score. Nearly every widget has one; text and the submit button are the exceptions, because their words belong in the sidebar where you are arranging the scene. An image shows Choose image (or Replace image) in Configure's place, which opens the media library directly. A count on the Behaviors segment means the widget is already wired — tap it to read what the widget does.

⛭ Properties is on every widget. It opens the properties panel — reopening it first if you have it collapsed — and lands on the widget's name, so the widget's look, layout, visibility, and behavior are one click from the canvas. Its setup — what the widget says, and how it is graded — is one click the other way, in ⚙ Configure.

Properties panel

The properties panel controls the selected widget or the current scene. It sits on the right side of the editor.

At the top sits the name of whatever the panel is showing — the selected widget, or the current scene when nothing is selected — with its type underneath (Button, Layout, Opening Scene, and so on). The name is a field: click it, type, then press Enter to keep the change or Esc to discard it. See Widgets and Widget Settings for why names are worth setting, and Scene Settings for renaming scenes.

When you need more canvas room, collapse the properties panel with the button in its top-right corner, or press ⌘ ⌥ \\ (Ctrl + Alt on Windows and Chromebooks). It folds down to a slim strip on the right edge, the mirror image of the left panel's: the expand button at the top brings it back, and so does the Properties icon below it. The studio remembers your preference between sessions. With the panel collapsed, ⛭ Properties on the pill above a selected widget brings it straight back.

This is where you adjust things like:

• Content
• Styling
• Visibility
• Effects
• Grading
• Source media
• Interactions and actions

Most of your detailed authoring work happens here.

The most useful mindset is:

• Scene settings shape the step
• Widget settings shape the experience inside the step

Variable manager

The variable manager is where you create and edit lesson-level and scene-level variables. Open the ⋯ menu in the top bar and choose Variables.

Use it when you want the lesson to remember:

• A score
• A selected path
• Whether a hint was used
• A personalized value
• A state that controls visibility or branching

More detail: Variables

Preview

Preview lets you test the lesson as a learner would experience it.

Preview is where you confirm:

• Scenes make sense in sequence
• Buttons and interactions do what you expect
• Grading behavior feels right
• Variables and conditions actually produce the intended flow

Preview from the opening scene before you consider a lesson ready.

That matters especially for:

• Branching lessons
• Timed activities
• Scenes with a layout behind them
• Lessons that reuse variables in text or feedback

Undo and redo

The Studio supports undo and redo, which is especially useful when you are experimenting with layout or interactions.

This makes it easier to test ideas without feeling locked into the first version.

Keyboard shortcuts

The chords you already use elsewhere work here: ⌘ Z to undo, ⌘ D to duplicate, ⌘ A to select everything on the scene, arrow keys to nudge, Alt-drag to pull off a copy. Press ? anywhere on the canvas — or open ⋯ → Keyboard shortcuts — for the full list, printed for your own keyboard. Full guide: Keyboard Shortcuts

A productive build order

The Studio works best when you use it in this order:

1. Create or rename scenes
2. Place the core content widgets
3. Adjust layout and styling
4. Add grading only where it matters
5. Add behaviors, variables, and conditions
6. Preview the full learner path

That order keeps the lesson grounded in instructional intent instead of getting lost in settings too early.

Recommended next reads

• Build Your First Lesson
• Moving Around the Canvas
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Text Presets
• Themes and Palettes
• Scene Management
• The Lesson Graph
• Widget Toolbar Actions
• Preview and Test a Lesson
• Lesson Previews
• Layouts