Interfaces

The Interface is the heart of Syntien. This section will walk you through all of the basics of managing your interfaces – editing, saving, opening, sharing, and more.

Edit Mode

Before we do anything, find the button in the top right corner of the screen. You can use this button to change between Edit mode (where you can edit your interfaces, open interfaces, and manage other settings), and Performance mode (where you can actually use the interface).

Before we dig into Syntien's capabilities, you should find the button to the

Settings page. This is where you can configure many of the global settings for editing and interacting with your interfaces, so we'll be referencing it throughout the tutorial. While you're in Edit mode, you can access the Settings page via the gear icon at the top of the screen (if you're using a tablet), or from within the

menu on the top left (if you're using a phone).

Accessing the Settings page in Edit mode

Now, we're ready to dive in.

Creating a Custom Interface

In Edit mode, open the menu in the top left and press

New to create a new interface.

Working with Controls

Adding Controls

To add a control to your interface, tap the one you want at the bottom of the screen. Syntien will automatically place it at a reasonable spot on the screen. There is no hard limit on the number of controls you can add to a single interface.

Moving and Resizing Controls

To move a control, simply tap the control in the center and drag it where you want.

To resize a control, tap one of the edges or corners, then drag to resize.

Duplicating Controls

To duplicate a control, long-press the control, then press "Duplicate." This will duplicate the control and all its settings, but will assign a new Control ID.

You can use the

Cut and

Copy buttons in the same menu to cut or copy the control. The

Paste button is located within the menu in the top left corner of the screen.

Control Configuration

You can configure a control in one of two ways:

Double-tap the control to open the configuration screen
Long-press the control, and then click "Options"

Control IDs

All controls will have a Control ID. This identifier is a valid OSC address that can be used as an address for sending or receiving OSC messages. It doesn't have to be unique, but in almost all cases, you'll probably want it to be unique. If you're not working with OSC (ex: you're only using MIDI), then you probably don't need to worry about it.

When adding a new control to the interface, Syntien assigns a Control ID based on the "Default Control ID" that you've configured on the settings page. By default, this will be /syntien/<interface_name>/<tab_number>/<control_name><control_number>. So if you add a slider to a new interface, its Control ID will be /syntien/untitled/1/slider1. If you add a second slider, its Control ID will be /syntien/untitled/1/slider2.

You can also set the position and visibility for any control. Most controls allow you to change their color, as well.

You can almost always ignore the Position and Visibility settings. You can adjust position more easily by dragging the control around the interface, and any control that you interact with should probably be visible. The exception would be controls that respond to motion or sound data – the IMU, Gesture, Level Meter, and Pitch Detector.

Changing the position or visibility of a control, or removing controls from your interface, will not update the Control ID! After a control has been added to the interface, its Control ID won't change unless you decide to change it.

Help Page

At the bottom of the screen, click on Details to view a basic help page for the control.

Undo / Redo

If you make a mistake while editing, you can use the

Undo and

Redo buttons. These can be found at the top of the screen on a tablet, or nested within the top left menu on a smaller device.

Layout

Canvas

In Edit mode, the controls live on the interface canvas, the blue box that surrounds all of the controls. Everything on the canvas will be visible in Performance mode. Everything outside the bounds of the canvas will not be visible during a performance.

In Performance mode, the canvas will be adjusted to fit your device's screen width and height. Everything you see on the canvas in Edit mode will be visible in Performance mode. So if you design an interface on a tablet, then share it with a friend who opens it on a phone, they'll be able to use the interface – it'll just be scaled down to fit their smaller screen.

Zooming and Resizing

To zoom in or out, you can use pinch gestures. On a tablet, you can also drag up or down on the Zoom icon on top of the screen.

To resize the canvas, press and hold one of the four sides or corners of the canvas, and drag it as needed.

On a tablet, you can reset the zoom to 100% and position the canvas at the top left by tapping the zoom icon. You can zoom-to-fit by long pressing the zoom icon. Neither of those actions change the height or width of the canvas; they simply adjust the zoom and scroll offset of the canvas.

To resize the canvas to fit your device's screen, tap

Interface Properties within the top left menu, then press "Match Device" beneath Interface Dimensions.

You can also specify if you want to force your device to use Portrait or Landscape mode for this interface. If you select "Any", the interface will rotate as you rotate your device (unless you have screen lock enabled on your device).

If you're happy with the canvas's position, you might want to use the

Lock Canvas button to lock the canvas in place. This will prevent you from accidentally moving or resizing the canvas while you edit your controls. You can unlock the canvas at any time by pressing the same button again. Similarly, you can use the

Lock Controls button to prevent further edits to the controls while you work with the canvas.

Grid Mode

Syntien 2 allows you to edit controls on a grid, which can be used to ensure that your controls are lined up nicely. To enable this, open the

Settings screen, scroll down to Grid Mode, and select one of the four options.

Off - Select this if you don't want to use a grid
Show - Select this if you want the grid to be visible, but only want to use it as reference. Controls will not be locked to the grid when editing.
Snap - Select this if you want to snap controls to the grid, but only if they're positioned close to a grid line.
Lock - Select this if you always want to lock controls to the grid.

The grid is only visible in Edit mode. If/when you use Macros or OSC messages to reposition controls, they won't conform to the grid.

Tabs

Syntien 2 allows you to create up to 8 tabs on an interface.

To create a tab, long-press the tab at the bottom of the screen and press "Insert Tab Before" or "Insert Tab After".

In the same menu, you'll also see options to move the tab, remove the tab, or remove all controls from the tab. Those options will only appear when relevant. For example, if there are no controls on the tab, you won't see the option to remove all controls.

You can also rename a tab from this menu.

To move a control to a different tab, use the Copy / Paste feature described in the Working with controls section.

Saving an Interface

To save an interface, simply use the

Save or

Save As buttons from the top left menu.

If you want your interfaces to be saved automatically while you're editing, open the

Settings screen and enable the "Save Automatically" option in the "Saving Custom Interfaces" section. Note that for a new interface, you'll still have to use "Save As" for the initial save.

Regardless of your auto-save preference, Syntien will ask you if you want to save changes or discard changes if you attempt to close an interface with unsaved changes.

Opening an Interface

You can open a saved interface by pressing the

Open button in the top left menu.

You'll probably notice that Syntien comes with a handful of built-in interfaces. These demonstrate a wide range of controls used in Syntien. You can't save these interfaces, but you CAN open them and use the Save As feature to create a new interface!

Quickstart Outputs

Syntien 2