Designing in Playbook Studio
The visual canvas
Pan, zoom, and navigate the Studio canvas — and understand why session order is structural, not freeform.
The visual canvas is where you'll spend most of your time in Playbook Studio.
It's where you design the structure of a template, organise phases and sessions, define goals, and collaborate on ideas.
This guide focuses on navigating the canvas. Editing phases, sessions, and other elements is covered in separate pages.
Navigating the canvas
The canvas works like a typical 2D workspace.
Middle-click and drag
Hold the middle mouse button and drag to move around the canvas.
Mouse wheel
Scroll to zoom in and out.
Fit to view
Return to a full view of the template at any time.
The canvas controls remain visible while you work, making it easy to zoom, reposition, and reset your view.
An important rule
Sessions cannot be freely dragged around the canvas.
Although the canvas looks similar to a whiteboard, session placement is based on the structure of your template rather than visual positioning.
A session's position is determined by:
- The phase it belongs to.
- Its order within that phase.
To change the structure, use the controls provided by the canvas:
-
Add a session using the
+button at the end of a phase. - Insert a session between two existing sessions.
- Move phases using the phase controls.
Why does Gleo work this way? Session order directly controls the experience participants see when a playbook is running. By making structure explicit rather than relying on drag-and-drop positioning, Gleo ensures the template always behaves exactly as intended.
At the moment, moving a session from one phase to another is not supported through the interface. You can reorder sessions within a phase and add new sessions wherever needed.
Walkthrough
-
1
Open a template
Open an existing template or create a new one from Playbook Studio.
-
2
Pan around the canvas
Use middle-click and drag to explore the workspace.
-
3
Zoom in and out
Use the mouse wheel to inspect individual sessions or view the entire template.
-
4
Use Fit to view
Reset the canvas and return to a full overview.
-
5
Explore the structure controls
Use the
+controls between sessions and phases to see how structure is managed.
Tips
Zoom out to review the flow. Looking at the whole template often makes structural issues easier to spot.
Use Fit to view whenever you lose your bearings. It's the quickest way to return to a clean overview.