Around the window
Where everything is in Maude 2 — the project pill and its one menu, Search, the Share cluster, the panels, the toolbars, the Inspector, Diagnostics and Settings — in the words the app uses.
Maude's window has a handful of pieces and each one has a single job. This page uses the same words the app does, so what you read here is what you can search for with ⌘K.
The project pill and its one menu
The project pill (mark and project name, top left) opens the Project menu. It is the only menu inside the window. In this documentation a path through it is written Menu › File › Export….
| Entry | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Back to Home | Leaves the project for Home. |
| File › | New canvas ⌘N, New project… ⇧⌘N, Open project… ⌘O, Duplicate · Rename · Move to…, Import from Figma…, Import a brand…, Export… ⇧⌘E, Handoff to production ⇧⌘H, Close canvas, Sign in as another account…. |
| Edit › | Undo ⌘Z, Redo ⇧⌘Z, Undo history…, cut / copy / paste, Select all. |
| View › | Hide panels / Show panels ⌘\, Comments ⇧⌘M, Assets, Exports, Annotations, Present, zoom. Advanced holds Layers as a panel, Inspector ⇧⌘I, Keep timeline open, Minimap, Print guides, Hidden files. |
| Help › | Keyboard shortcuts ?, Help and guides F1, What's new, Take the tour, Set up Maude…, How sharing works, Report a bug…. |
| Version history | ⌥⌘H. Top level, one click. |
| Share… | Opens the Share sheet. |
| Export… | ⇧⌘E. |
| Diagnostics › | See below. |
| Settings… | ⌘,. See below. |
The Mac's own menu bar is still there, kept short: Maude (About · Check for Updates… · Quit), File (New canvas, New project…, Open project…, New Home tab), Edit, Window (the tab commands) and Help › Report a Bug….
Project tabs
Maude has its own tab strip. Home is a pinned, icon-only first tab (⌘T opens a new one); every project gets one tab, with its square, its name and one small state mark — AI working, done, or needs you. ⌘1–⌘8 jump to a tab, ⌘9 to the last. Right-click a tab for its menu.
Search
⌘K is Search: canvases (by name and by the artboards inside them), pictures, actions, and every tool that is not on screen. Each action result names where it lives — Menu › File › Export… — so you learn the menu by using it. Ask AI is always the last row. Accents do not matter: letak finds leták.
The Share cluster
Top right, one island:
- Faces of the people on the project, and next to them one word for the save state: Saved · Syncing… · Offline — kept on this Mac · Local project. A write that failed and is not queued shows Not saved with one action, Retry. It is a word, not a control.
- The Edit · Preview · Present switch. People who can only look see Viewing instead of Edit.
- Share… — the Share sheet. Invite is the primary button, Copy link sits in the link row, and a local project's Move to Maude Cloud… lives inside it. See Share links.
- An Exports icon with a progress ring appears once any export exists.
Panels
Panels float over the canvas. ⌘\ hides them all; Panels hidden. Press ⌘\ to bring them back.
- Left panel — three tabs: Canvases · Layers · Assets. Your project's Design system is pinned above the canvases, and Trash is the last row of Canvases. A canvas row's ⋯ menu has Open · Pin · Rename · Duplicate · Move to… · Copy link · Copy relative path · Move to trash; a menu closes when you click anywhere outside it, not only on esc. Things you remove are moved to the trash, not deleted; only a project owner clears it out.
- AI chat panel (right) — a normal conversation. ⌘/ is Ask AI with your selection attached. AI's changes show live in Preview; one AI run is one undo step.
- Comments (right, ⇧⌘M) — filters Open · Mine · Resolved · All. A comment's trash icon deletes it on a second press.
- Light | Dark — every canvas has one small pill at the top, in the same place the Design system canvas has it. It switches every artboard on the canvas at once; the design system sets which one a canvas starts in, so there is no per-artboard theme and no "follow the app" setting. The pill also shows the canvas's path inside the project — click it to copy. If a canvas has no Dark version, the pill says so instead of doing nothing.
- Design system — a project without one shows an empty view with Create a design system, which opens the AI chat with the set-up prompt. A system that is below the schema shows Bring it up to the schema in a small card in the corner of the window: it says why the schema matters, and while AI works only that system is locked — the rest of the project stays open.
- Inspector — comes with the selection. Closed, its › Advanced fold says "Code, tokens, CSS"; open, it adds the element, the tokens bound and the raw CSS rows. There is no separate "words" setting any more: the frame speaks designer, the fold is the code. Panels remember which of their › Advanced folds you opened. A colour opens Figma's picker: Custom (the area, hue and opacity bars, eyedropper, Hex / RGB / HSL, and the colours On this page) or Libraries (the design system's colours as a list of named rows). On a fill, Solid · Gradient · Image says what the fill is; a gradient's stops drag along the bar, and Image takes a file, a link or a picture from Assets. Switching between tabs keeps the picker open. Drag a number's label to change the number; selecting text is switched off while you drag.
Toolbars
The bottom toolbar changes with the mode:
- Edit — tools that make things inside artboards: Select V · Hand H · Artboard / Frame F · Shape R · Pen P · Text T · Image I · Component ⇧I · More. Drag a picture or a video from Assets, or a file from Finder, onto an artboard or frame to place it. A placed video shows a play button when you hover or select it (Space plays it too).
- Preview — annotation tools only: Hand · Sticky N · Comment C · Marker M · Arrow A · Shape · Text · Stickers E · Section S. The design is live, not editable. Pressing an annotation key in Edit switches to Preview with that tool; esc puts the tool away and clears the selection, but never leaves Preview — ⌥⌘P (or the mode switch) takes you back to Edit. Drag a picture, a video or a file from Assets or Finder onto the canvas and it becomes an annotation. A sticker shows its picture as soon as you pick it, and a stamp can be selected, moved and deleted like a sticker. The Blank section tile arms the Section tool: drag to size the section (a click makes the default size), and the tool goes back to Select when you let go. An object you drag into a section moves with it afterwards. A placed video has a play button in Preview as well.
? opens the sheet with every shortcut once. If single keys get in the way of typing in another app, Settings › General › Keyboard turns them off.
Version history and undo
Version history (⌥⌘H) lists saved versions of the project — who made each one and when — with a preview and Restore. ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z undo and redo, AI's changes included; Menu › Edit › Undo history… lists your steps and AI's.
Diagnostics
Menu › Diagnostics is a submenu for when something is actually wrong, never its own window. It shows a status word for Sync, Server and AI setup, and holds Logs, Reload canvas (⌘R) and Check AI setup again. Its Advanced part holds the address, the process, the project folder, Resync now and Download all. Report a bug… lives in Help.
Settings
Menu › Settings… (⌘,) has three tabs:
- General — your account (every account on this Mac; each project tab is bound to one), Theme (Light · Dark · Auto), canvas and view switches, Keyboard, search in pictures, panel layout.
- Connections — Maude Cloud, a self-hosted hub, GitHub.
- Advanced — the local server port (display only), Decision memory, Check for updates.
Callouts and toasts
Maude does not stack bars across the window. A state that needs you — offline, a sign-in that expired, a canvas that cannot be drawn right now — shows as a callout or a toast with one action at most, and it says what happened, what is safe, and one verb. When your work is safe offline it says so: Offline — kept on this Mac.