Exploring

Moving around a board in the Player and looking closer at its shapes.

The Player without playback controls, with navigation controls at the top right and zoom and minimap at the bottom left.

Exploring lets you move around a board in the Player and interact with its content:

  • Move and zoom freely: pan across the board, zoom in on details, or jump to a marked region (within the Bounds camera if one is set in Player settings).
  • Step through cameras: move from one camera to the next like slides. See Stepping through cameras.
  • Inspect and use shapes: temporarily hide overlapping shapes with X-ray to see behind them, and use interactive shapes such as videos, tables, or PDFs.

How you explore depends on the board:

  • Boards without animations: exploring is the only mode, so you can move around the board right away.
  • Boards with animations: turn off Camera follow to move around freely while the animation is playing or paused. See Playing.

The Player places its navigation controls in two corners:

Moving around

The hand cursor over a zoomed-in view of the board, with Camera follow turned off for free navigation.

Use mouse, trackpad, or touch gestures to move the view around the board:

  • Pan: drag on the board with the mouse or one finger, or turn the mouse wheel to scroll vertically:
    • Over interactive shapes: the wheel moves the board over any shape you aren't interacting with. Drags inside an open document or a running HTML shape go to that shape, so drag outside them to pan the view.
    • When Camera follow is on: on a board with an active camera and Camera follow enabled, dragging horizontally scrubs the animation instead of panning.
  • Zoom: pinch with two fingers, or hold Ctrl and turn the mouse wheel to zoom around the pointer.
  • Zoom in a step: double-click.
  • Zoom out a step: triple-click.

Back to content

The Back to content button.

Back to content appears at the top left when you pan away from all shapes on the board. Choose it to fit the visible content back into view.

Stepping through cameras

On a board with cameras, you can step from camera to camera like slides, following the order in the board's Cameras panel:

  • Next camera: ↓ or Page Down, or the forward button on a presentation clicker.
  • Previous camera: ↑ or Page Up, or the back button on a presentation clicker.

How camera stepping behaves:

  • Uses the camera transition: each step moves the view to the next camera using the board's camera transition, and wraps from the last camera back to the first.
  • Returns after panning or zooming: if you pan or zoom away from the current camera, the next step returns to the camera you left before moving on.
  • Pauses animation playback: on a board with an animation, stepping to a camera pauses playback and frees the view. Pressing Play returns the view to the animated camera.
  • Ignores Bounds camera: you can step to every camera on the board, even one outside the Bounds camera. The bounds still limit manual panning and zooming.

Navigation controls

Zoom to fit

Zoom to fit in the Player's navigation controls.

Choose Zoom to fit to fit the visible content into the window, within the board's navigation bounds.

Fullscreen

Fullscreen in the Player's navigation controls.

Choose Fullscreen to expand the Player:

  • Fills the screen or window: expands to the full screen when the browser allows it, or fills the browser window otherwise.
  • Exit fullscreen: returns the Player to its normal size.

How to use the Player

The Player's help guide for navigation and camera-follow scrubbing.

Choose How to use the Player to pause playback and open a short guide covering navigation and, on boards with an animated camera, Camera follow and scrubbing. Playback stays paused when you close the guide.

Minimap

The current zoom and the Show minimap button at the bottom left of the Player.

When Minimap is on in Player settings, the bottom-left corner shows the current zoom and Show minimap, which works the same way as in the editor (see Minimap):

  • Compact: shows the current zoom percentage, which you can click and edit to enter an exact zoom.
  • Expanded: opens a small overview of the whole board. Click anywhere in it to jump there, or drag the rectangle that marks the current view.

Context menu

The Player context menu with Zoom area, Zoom to fit, X-ray, and Fullscreen.

Right-click the board, or press and hold on a touch screen, to open the context menu. Move toward a button and release, or click the button directly, just like in the editor (see Context menu):

  • Zoom area: zooms into a point or a marked region. While active, Explore canvas takes its place. See Zoom area.
  • Zoom to fit: fits the visible content into view. See Zoom to fit.
  • X-ray: temporarily hides a shape so you can see behind it. See X-ray.
  • Fullscreen: expands the Player. In fullscreen, Exit fullscreen takes its place. See Fullscreen.

Zoom area

A marked area of the board and the closer view it produces.

Zoom area zooms into a point or a rectangular region you mark, then returns the Player to normal exploring:

  • Zoom in a step: click a point on the board.
  • Zoom into a region: drag a rectangle around the area you want to fill the view.
  • Zoom out: hold Alt while clicking a point or dragging a rectangle.

X-ray

The X-ray button at the bottom of the context menu.

X-ray dims a shape so you can inspect what lies behind it:

  • Hide a shape: open the context menu on a shape and choose X-ray. Depending on the shape type, it turns into a faint outline or faded content.
  • Restore all hidden shapes: open the context menu on empty space outside frames and choose X-ray again.

Interactive shapes

Some shapes respond to you in the Player, and you interact with one of them at a time. The editor's Player mode and Explore canvas tool work the same way.

  • Finding them: with a mouse or trackpad, pointing at an interactive shape shows a faint outline around it and a Click to interact hint. A running HTML shape shows only the outline, because your first click already uses its page.
  • Starting: tap the shape. A tap on something that responds, such as a video or a link in a document, also acts on it right away. A tap anywhere else on the shape only starts the interaction.
  • While you interact:
    • Outline and controls: an outline marks the shape, and you use its own controls, such as a video's player bar or a document's page controls.
    • Scroll wheel: scrolls the shape's content and stops at its end without moving the board. A video has nothing to scroll, so the wheel over it moves the board. A pinch still zooms the board.
    • Keyboard: the keys the shape uses go to it instead of the Player.
    • Pages from other sites: in a web embed, or a video from a site such as YouTube, the page inside takes the wheel and the pinch.
  • Stopping: tap anywhere outside the shape. Its content stays as it was: a video keeps playing or stays paused, and a document stays on its page.
    • Elsewhere on the board: the tap only ends the interaction, and doesn't play or pause the animation.
    • On another interactive shape: the interaction moves straight to it.
    • On another shape's button: the button still works, such as an audio card's play button.
  • No board left to tap: when a shape fills most of the view, use Stop interacting at the top left to end the interaction.
  • Out of view: when the shape leaves the view, taps and keys work as if you weren't interacting with anything. The shape keeps playing, and the interaction comes back when it returns to the view.
    • In a table with thousands of cells: scrolling the table far away from a video or document in a cell ends the interaction with it. Tap it again to use it.

Each shape's Player interaction section describes its controls: