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On Air

On Air is the live cueing surface. Where Channels is for authoring (setting up channels, queues, scenes and their conditions), On Air is for operating.

On Air opens in its viewing state by default. Interact mode is a separate state on each item, opened when you want to send template variable updates live without forcing a scene-level change. Pinned variables appear inline for editing any variable a template author has marked as pinned.

What you see

  • Per-frame previews of what is currently live on each output, kept in sync with the Canvas preview.
  • The active queues for the bound channels, with their items visible.
  • Force Live controls for taking over the schedule with a chosen scene or queue.
  • Pinned variables: if a template author has marked variables as pinned, you can edit those values from here without forcing the scene live.

Cue and take

Cue and Take is the recommended workflow for broadcast environments.

  1. Cue a scene or template to load it into the cue output without disturbing the main output.
  2. Take to swap the cued content onto the main output.

Cue and Take works with nested templates too: a cued nested template is fully resolved before taking.

Force Live

Force Live overrides the schedule with a chosen scene or queue.

  • Force Live a scene: send a specific scene to the channel, ignoring most error conditions.
  • Force Live a queue: send a queue. The system finds and plays the first valid item in the queue.

When the Force Live ends, the channel returns to its scheduled content.

See Live override for the full pattern.

Grid view and control panels

On Air has two views: Frames, described above, and Grid. The Grid view shows control panels: grids of buttons, each running its triggers when pressed. Tap or click a button to fire it. Hold it on a touch screen, or right-click it, to edit it; drag it to move it to another slot.

Control from another system

Another system can control On Air by sending requests to CanvasPro's HTTP API, signed in as a CanvasPro user: for example to put a scene or queue on air, or to cue and take. CanvasPro does not receive OSC or serial commands. See Integrate with external systems.

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