Getting started

Overview

SSHOW is a browser-based editor for designing scenes and bringing them to life with motion. This guide walks you through every part of the canvas.

Whether you're building a presentation, a short animated story, or an interactive showcase, SSHOW gives you precise design tools and a transition engine that animates between scenes automatically — in your browser, or in the desktop Studio app.

Create in six steps

The shortest path from a blank canvas to a finished piece.

  1. 1

    Add a scene

    Every project is a sequence of scenes. Set the canvas size once and it applies to all of them.

  2. 2

    Draw your objects

    Use the toolbar to add shapes, text, images, and media to the canvas.

  3. 3

    Style them

    Apply fills, strokes, and effects from the inspector to give each object its look.

  4. 4

    Add motion

    Duplicate a scene, move things around, and SSHOW animates the difference as a transition.

  5. 5

    Save your work

    Click Save in the top bar to store your project. There's no autosave, and SSHOW warns you before you leave with unsaved changes.

  6. 6

    Share or export

    Publish a play link or export to video, PDF, image, and more.

The editor at a glance

Five regions make up the editor. You'll spend most of your time moving between them.

The SSHOW editor with five numbered callouts: 1 the toolbar on top, 2 the canvas in the centre, 3 the Scenes panel and 4 the Objects panel on the left, and 5 the inspector on the right.
The editor's five surfaces, numbered to match the list below.
1Toolbar (top)
Every creation tool — select, shapes, text, image, media. Covered in Tools & shortcuts.
2Canvas (center)
Your live workspace. Pan with the Move tool, zoom with the controls at the bottom-right.
3Scenes (left)
The ordered list of scenes. Add, duplicate, reorder, and search them here.
4Objects (lower-left)
The layer list for the active scene. Select, rename, reorder, lock, and hide objects.
5Inspector (right)
Properties for the current selection — size, transform, fills, strokes, effects, and motion.

Note A menu button at the top-left of the toolbar opens the project menu — New, Open File, Save File, Import, Export, and SSHOW (about and settings). That's where the Import and Export panels mentioned throughout these guides are launched.

The right rail

The buttons in the top-right corner open the project-level panels — and the last one plays your project.

Five icons in the top-right rail: a motion curve, a tag, a notes book, a sparkle, and a play triangle.
Left to right: Motion, Variables, Notes, AI, and Play.
Motion
Opens the Motion panel to shape a scene's transition — see the Motion guide.
Variables
Opens the Variables panel to define reusable values — see the Variables guide.
Notes
Opens project and per-scene notes — see Tools & Shortcuts.
AI
Opens the AI Assistant to create or edit by describing what you want — see the AI guide.
Play
Enters Play mode to present the project full-screen — see Present & share.

Explore the guide

Design fundamentals Scenes, objects, and the styling system that gives everything its look — fills, strokes, and effects. Tools & shortcuts The toolbar holds every creation tool. Most have a single-key shortcut so you can switch without leaving the canvas. Variables Reusable values you define once and reference anywhere in text with double-brace tokens. Import Bring an existing PowerPoint deck, PDF, or SVG into SSHOW as a fully editable project — every page becomes a scene you can keep designing. Transitions Motion in SSHOW is built on transitions: animate between two scenes and the engine figures out the in-between for you. Animation A timeline for animating individual objects — keyframe any property for fine, frame-level motion design, independent of scene transitions. Coming soon. Presenting Play your scenes full-screen with transitions — the way your audience sees them. Export & share Take your project out of SSHOW as a document, an image, a video, or the native editable file. Interaction Triggers and actions that make your scenes respond to clicks, hovers, and more. In active development. AI Assistant An AI assistant that builds and edits scenes from a prompt, and generates images on the canvas. Available now, in beta. Figma plugin Move designs between Figma and SSHOW — export selected frames to an editable .sshow file, or drop a .sshow back onto the Figma canvas. MCP server Let an AI assistant work inside the project you have open — reading scenes, editing objects, and checking its work by sight, all over the Model Context Protocol.