# Layouts

> Grid, Focus, Follow and Free: how each one arranges your shared windows, and how to switch between them.

Source: https://curtains.app/help/layouts/

A layout decides where your shared windows sit on the canvas, and you can change it at any time, even while you're Live.

## Pick a layout

Open the **Layout** panel and click a card. If the panel is folded away, click **Layout** in the rail on the left edge. The layout menu at the left of the stage bar has the same four choices.

*Image: The Layout panel: four layout cards, Grid (selected), Focus, Follow and Free, then Next layout and the Fit all windows button.*

You can pick a layout before you pick any window; the first draft starts with it. A saved [combo](https://curtains.app/help/combos/) remembers its layout too.

Every layout keeps each window's shape. A window that doesn't match its space gets bars around it instead of being stretched. The space around and between windows is **Window padding** in **Settings › Presenter**, and the **Shared with Curtains** badge keeps its corner clear of your windows.

## Switch with the keyboard

Press `⌃⌥]` to move to the next layout, from any app. The order is Grid, Focus, Follow, Free, then Grid again. The same action is the **Next layout** button in the Layout panel and the **Layout** button on the [floating remote](https://curtains.app/help/floating-remote-and-menu-bar/). To use other keys, go to **Settings › Shortcuts**.

## Grid

**Grid** tiles every window so as much of each one as possible stays visible. One window fills the canvas, two sit side by side, three get one large window and two stacked beside it, four make a square, and five or six make three across and two down. Curtains picks the split that shows the most for the windows' shapes.

*Image: The preview in Grid with four windows: Google Chrome and Visual Studio Code on top, Figma and Slack below, on a green canvas.*

Use Grid when viewers should see everything at once. To change who sits where, see [Rearrange windows](https://curtains.app/help/rearrange-windows/).

## Focus with a filmstrip

**Focus** makes one window large, with the others as small live thumbnails in a filmstrip. The strip runs along the bottom, or down the right side when the large window is tall. The large window carries a **Focused** pill.

*Image: The preview in Focus: Google Chrome large with a Focused pill, and Visual Studio Code, Figma and Slack as thumbnails along the bottom.*

Click a thumbnail on the preview, or a row in the **Order** list, to make that window the large one. Drag a thumbnail onto the large window to swap them.

## Follow

**Follow** shows the window you're working in as the large one. A strip across the top holds the **Shared with Curtains** badge at its left and live tiles of your other shared windows at its right, so viewers always see what else is in the share.

*Image: The preview in Follow: Google Chrome large in the middle, and the badge and three small tiles of the other windows in a strip across the top.*

To change the large window, click another shared window on your desktop. If you click an app that isn't shared, Curtains keeps showing the last shared window you used, and never shows an app you didn't pick. Dragging a window onto the large one makes it the followed window until you click a different shared window.

With one window the strip holds only the badge. If you turn the badge off (a Pro setting), the strip goes away and the window fills the canvas.

## Free

**Free** puts you in charge. Drag a window to move it, drag its handles to resize it, and let it overlap another if you like. Windows snap to the canvas edges, to each other and to a 12-column grid. Hold `⌥` while you drag to place a window anywhere, with no snapping.

*Image: The preview in Free: three windows with dashed outlines and square handles at their corners and edges, ready to drag.*

When you switch to Free, every window starts where the previous layout had it. Dragging, snapping and the keyboard are covered in [Rearrange windows](https://curtains.app/help/rearrange-windows/).

## Focus on top of any layout

The **Focus** action is separate from the Focus layout. In Grid, Follow and Free it makes one window fill the whole canvas until you unfocus it, then puts everything back. See [Focus](https://curtains.app/help/focus/).

## Related

- [Rearrange windows](https://curtains.app/help/rearrange-windows/): drag, reorder and move windows by keyboard.
- [Focus](https://curtains.app/help/focus/): fill the canvas with one window.
- [Fit and resize windows](https://curtains.app/help/fit-and-resize-windows/): make real windows match their spaces.
- [Themes and custom backgrounds](https://curtains.app/help/themes-and-custom-backgrounds/): the canvas behind the windows.
- [Keyboard shortcuts](https://curtains.app/help/keyboard-shortcuts/)