DocsStudio

Settings

Studio's settings are how Studio looks, how its code editors behave, how it keeps your work, what the preview costs while you work, where its panels are, and its keys. They're Studio's own, not the scene's: they stay the same whichever scene you open, and they're kept between runs.

Opening them

Pick File › Settings…, or the gear on the start screen, or Settings in the ⋯ menu on a phone. A window opens over Studio. Drag its bottom right corner to make it bigger or smaller; it keeps that size. Esc or its × closes it.

The sections are down the left: Appearance, Code, Saving, Preview, Panels, Keys and Privacy and reports. Click one to see it; a dot beside one means something in it isn't as it came. Each has Back to how it came at the top, for its own settings. A change takes effect at once; there's nothing to save.

Find a setting or a key at the top searches every section by the settings' words and the actions' names: click what it finds, or press Enter for the first, and its section opens with it lit.

Appearance

Colours: Dark, Light, or As the desktop, which follows the desktop's own choice. Dark is grey rather than black. This is the same choice as Appearance in Motion Player's Settings: one choice for both programs, kept in look.conf in Motion's settings folder. Change it in either and the other changes too, at once, while both are open. Language, under it, is shared the same way.

The code editors' colours follow it.

Layout: Automatic (to start with), Desktop or Phone. Automatic shows one panel at a time on a phone or in a narrow window, and the docks otherwise. On a tablet, When I turn the tablet chooses between Switch layout (to start with: upright, one panel at a time; sideways, the docks) and Keep the layout it started with.

Code

These are for every code editor in Studio: the script, the visual script's code, shaders and materials, and a web project's files.

• Text size can also be changed in an editor: Ctrl+= and Ctrl+-, or Ctrl and the mouse wheel, make the text bigger and smaller, and Ctrl+0 puts it back to normal. The editors' Wrap and Minimap buttons at the bottom change the next two settings here as well.
• Code map is the minimap: a small picture of the whole file down the editor's right side, to see where you are and jump about. It shows only when the editor is wide and tall enough.
• Rerun scripts: how the preview picks up changes to the scene's script. With Run waits for Run or Ctrl+Enter. On save runs it again each time the scene is saved. As you type runs it again as you change it. The script editor has the same choice in its own toolbar (Run when asked, Run on save, Run as you type). See Scripts.

Editor outside Studio: VS Code (to start with) or The system's, for opening scripts and shaders outside Studio. VS Code gets the scripting API's types too.

Always open code there: off to start with. On, scripts and shaders open in that editor by themselves, and stay in step with Studio.

How much of the script editor the console takes is kept too: drag the edge between the code and the console.

Saving

Crash recovery: Never, 10 s, 30 s or 1 min. To start with, 10 s. While a scene has changes that aren't saved, Studio keeps a copy of it this often. If Studio stops before you save, the next time it starts it offers that copy (Open what you were working on?). Saving, or closing Studio and choosing Don't save, throws the copy away.

Autosave: Never, 1 min or 5 min. To start with, Never. With a time set, Studio saves the scene by itself that often while it has changes, as long as it's been saved once already. A new scene isn't saved by itself until you've saved it the first time.

Undo goes back through the last 200 changes either way, and Use as wallpaper always saves first.

The preview

Frame rate limit: 30, 60 or As the screen. To start with, 60. How often the preview draws while it plays. Fewer frames cost less: on integrated graphics, 30 is plenty to work with. This is only Studio's preview; the wallpaper on the desktop has its own setting in Motion Player (see Settings).

Pause when hidden: on to start with. The preview pauses while another window is in front of Studio, so a preview nobody's watching costs nothing. Turn it off to keep it playing beside another program, for instance to watch it follow music you're playing.

Panels

Assets panel: Under the preview (to start with), on the Left beside the Outliner, or on the Right beside the settings. The panel's own dock button does the same.

Show the Assets panel: on to start with. Off folds it away; Ctrl+Space folds the bottom dock away and brings it back.

Keys

Every action a key can do, grouped: File, Edit, View, Window, Timeline, Layers, Script, Code (in a code editor), Graph (in a node graph) and Files (in Assets). Each row has the action, what it does, and its keys, shown as your computer writes them.

• Click an action's keys, then press the new ones. Esc leaves them as they were; Backspace leaves the action with no key.
• When another action has those keys already (in the same place: Studio's keys and a code editor's don't clash), it says which, and offers Swap (the other action takes this one's keys) or Cancel.
• The arrow beside a changed action puts its keys back as they came; Back to how it came at the top does it for every action.
• Find a setting or a key finds an action by its name.

The keys are kept in keys.json in Motion's settings folder (%APPDATA%\motion on Windows, ~/.config/motion on Linux), and every shortcut in Studio, the command palette's list and the tips read them from there. Holding Space to look around a graph, Esc, and the keys that type and move the cursor in a code editor stay as they are.

Privacy and reports

The same switches as Settings › Privacy and reports in Motion Player, one choice for both programs: Help improve Motion (off unless you turn it on) and Send crash reports without asking. Report a bug has its Report… here too, as well as in the Help menu. See Privacy and reports for what each one sends.

Last changed 2 November 2026. Something wrong here? Tell us.