Basics

The window

Magnum's window, part by part: the toolbar along the top, the sidebar on the left, the session area in the middle (as tabs or tiles), and the side pane on the right; terminals, devices and browsers are tabs beside the sessions. Each part has its keys and its place in the menus; Settings, Usage and Control open in windows of their own.

The toolbar

Along the top of the window, from the left:

• On Linux, Magnum β, beside the window's buttons, when the sidebar is hidden (otherwise it heads the sidebar).
• Show sidebar, when the sidebar is hidden (not over the Board).
• The title of the session showing (in tiles, the one with the keyboard): click or right-click it for the session's menu (Sessions). With two tabs or more (or a terminal), the tabs instead. Over the Board it reads Board.
• +, with a project open, after the title or the tabs: New session (⌘N), New terminal (⌘T) or New browser (⇧⌘N).
• Run and Ship, with a project open: ▶ runs it (■ while it runs, a spinner while Magnum finds what to run; right-click for Run on a target, Open its address, Edit run command… and Find again), and the rocket ships it, its icon telling how far Ship has got (Run and Ship).
• The side pane, with a project open, beside Run and Ship: its icon is the project's section it opens to, the one shown last (Changes or Files; for Ship, a plain panel). With the Board beside, it puts that section in the Board's place.
• Devices (the phone): your iOS simulators, by iOS version, and Android virtual devices. Pick one and it opens in a tab of its own beside your sessions and terminals, so it tiles like them, and you can open as many as you like. ▶ Run puts a phone app's device in such a tab too (the one open on it already, when there is one). A simulator booted or an emulator started outside Magnum (by Xcode, flutter run, simctl, emulator in a shell, or an agent's command) while a project is open opens in a tab of its own within a few seconds; those already running when Magnum starts, and those with a tab, don't. Settings → General → Open devices as they start turns this off. An iOS simulator's screen is live in its tab, and you use it there: a click taps, a drag swipes as you move (from the screen's bottom edge, it goes home), Home is a button, and once you've clicked the screen what you type goes to it (US keys; ⌘ shortcuts stay Magnum's). Open Simulator is there too. Magnum drives the simulator through the active Xcode's own frameworks; if they can't be reached, the tab shows the screen's pictures to watch instead, without Home. On Android the screen is a picture read again and again; a click taps, a drag swipes, Back and Home are buttons, and what you type goes to it. Closing its tab shuts it down when Magnum started it.
• The Board (⌥⌘B), with how many things need you: it opens Board › Now, its list of what needs you, in the side pane beside your session. Right-click it for the full Board (⇧⌘B).
• Settings, when no project is open (otherwise it's in the sidebar's footer).

The buttons show their icons alone; point at one for its name and key. The toolbar and the sidebar's header move the window, and double-clicking them does what double-clicking a title bar does in your system's settings.

The sidebar

The sidebar lists your sessions by project, the sessions pinned to the top above them, then your sections, then Archived. Its header has the window's buttons (on Linux, Magnum β beside them), Search sessions (⌘K: every session, open or past, in every project), Hide sidebar (⌘0) and New session; its footer, Settings, the book (Magnum Guide, Keyboard Shortcuts, Take the Tour, Show a tip, tips on or off), Magnum's update when there's one, and Add project. Projects, Machines and Automations, at its top, switch it between your projects, your machines (Machines) and your automations (Automations); so do ⌘P → Show machines in the sidebar, Show automations in the sidebar and Show projects in the sidebar.

Drag its right edge to make it wider or narrower (200 to 480 points); the width is kept. It steps aside while the Board shows and when no project is open, and ⌘0 hides it or brings it back (it's shown again after a restart). ⌘1 to ⌘9 show the toolbar's tabs in order.

Click a project's name to fold it, a section's heading to fold the section; both stay as you left them. A project's ⋯ has New session, New worktree…, Open terminal, Move to section, Archive and Remove from sidebar; a section's ⋯ (or a right-click) has Rename…, Move up, Move down, New section… and Remove section. Right-click a session for its menu, Pin to top among it.

Tabs and tiles

The sessions you open line up as tabs in the toolbar, in the title's place, once there are two, from any project, and so do the projects' terminals; right-click a session's tab for its menu. The space after the tabs still moves the window; when there are more tabs than fit, the strip scrolls, and the one shown is scrolled into view. Each tab shows how its session is doing (working, waiting on you, finished), or a terminal's, a device's or a browser's mark, and, for another project's, its name. Point at a tab for Detach (left) and ✕ (right, which takes a session off the strip, where it stays in the sidebar, ends a terminal, closes a device or a page). + after the tabs offers New session, New terminal and New browser.

Detach turns every tab into a tile: tiles sit side by side, then in a grid as square as fits, each at least 340 by 280 points. When another doesn't fit, the one you used least recently leaves the tiles; it stays open, out of view, and ⌘P → Tile “…” brings it back. A tile's header shows its title, its project when it's another's, its machine when it's another, Dock and ✕; right-click a session's for its menu. A terminal tiles with its project showing; switch projects and it waits in the strip. Under a tile's message box, the environment and the pickers show their icons alone.

Detach is on a tab, under the message box, in the session menu, and in ⌘P (Detach: tiles); Dock is in a tile's header, the session menu and ⌘P (Dock: tabs). ⌃⌥T switches either way. In tiles:

• ⌃⌥←, ⌃⌥→, ⌃⌥↑ and ⌃⌥↓ give the keyboard to the tile beside (they don't wrap around, and do nothing while a tile is zoomed). Past the right edge, ⌃⌥→ reaches the side pane when it shows the Board or a file; ⌃⌥← comes back. In tabs, ⌃⌥→ and ⌃⌥← go between the session and the side pane the same way.
• ⌃⌥↩ zooms the tile you're in to the whole area, and back; ⌘P has Zoom tile and Unzoom tile once there are two tiles.
• ⌘W closes the tile you're in: the session stays a tab, nothing stops. Closing the last tile docks.
• ⌘P lists Tile “…” for each open session out of view, and Show “…” in tabs.

Opening a session from the sidebar, ⌘N, ⌘K or the Board puts it where you are: a tab, or with tiles on, a tile. Tabs, tiles and which one shows come back after a restart.

The side pane

The side pane opens on the right: Changes (⇧⌘G), Files (⇧⌘E), Board (⌥⌘B), and Ship once it's been used. With no project open, it holds only the Board. Its header switches between them and ✕ closes it; pressing a section's key again closes it too. A file, a diff or a pull request opened in it shows with ‹ to go back to the section. View → Changes and View → Files, the toolbar's pane button and ⌘P (Show Changes, Show Files) open it as well.

Terminals

A terminal is a tab in the strip, beside the sessions; picked, it takes the session's place. ⌃` shows the project's terminal, starting one in the project when there's none; again, the session comes back, as it does when you pick a session, ⌘L or the Board. + in the toolbar → New terminal starts another; ✕ on its tab ends it. ⌘T starts one from anywhere. In a terminal, ⌘W ends it; ⌃Tab, ⌃⇧Tab and ⌘1 to ⌘9 move between the toolbar's tabs as anywhere else. Another project's terminals stay in the strip with its name; picking one shows that project. ⌘P → New terminal and View → Terminals do the same. A terminal runs on the project's machine, and a Run's output shows here as a tab of its own.

Browsers

A browser is a tab of its own too, beside the sessions and terminals, and tiles like them: as many as you like (two routes, two ports). + in the toolbar → New browser (⇧⌘N, or ⌘P → New browser) asks for an address: localhost:3000, :5173 or 5173 for a port here, or a full address. When ▶ Run serves your web app, its page opens in a browser tab of its own (the same tab again on the next run). So does any other local address something prints, once each: a dev server you start in a terminal (its page takes the terminal's place), or one an agent starts with its shell (its page waits in the strip, or with tiles on joins them, so the session keeps its place). Only an address that answers is opened, and only output from a turn under way, not a reopened session's history. Settings → General → Open pages as they start turns this off. A tab has Back, Forward, Reload, the address (type another and press ↩), the width (Full width, or a phone's 390 points or a tablet's 820, centred), reload when files change (on: the page reloads once a save in its project settles, leaving out .git, node_modules, target and such, unless the page reloads itself, as a dev server's hot reload does; click to turn it off for that tab), Web Inspector (WebKit's own, docked under the page; right-click → Inspect Element opens it too) and Open in browser; it's named by the page's title. Menus, popovers and notifications that open over a page show above it. Click in a page and what you type goes to it, with ⌘C, ⌘V, ⌘X, ⌘A, ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z editing there, and its tile has the keyboard; ⌘1 to ⌘9, ⌃Tab and the window's other keys still work, and the page lets the keyboard go when they move it elsewhere. ⌘W closes the page shown (in tiles, the page's or a device's tile you're in); ⌃Tab and ⌘1 to ⌘9 move to and from it. Pages show in the window on a Mac; on Linux, New browser and Run open your browser instead. Browsers and devices aren't kept when Magnum quits.

The Board in the window

The toolbar's Board button (⌥⌘B, View → Board Beside, ⇧⌘I) opens the Board beside your session: Board › Now takes the side pane; a row's session opens in the middle and the Board stays. Click into it for its keys. The button or ⌥⌘B again closes it.

The full Board (⇧⌘B, View → Board, or right-click the Board button → Full Board) takes the place of the session area, with the sidebar and the tab strip out of the way. Opening a session from a row leaves it, as a tab or a tile. See The Board.

Menus

The menu bar has Magnum (Settings…, Usage, Check for Updates…), File (New Session, Open Folder…, Switch Project…, Close Session, Reopen Closed Session), View (Command Palette, Board, Board Beside, Sidebar, Changes, Files, Terminals, What Needs You, Control, Next Density), Project (Run, Stop Running, Edit Run Command…, Ship), Session (Switch Session…, Next Tab, Previous Tab, Next Session Needing You, Message Box, Stop) and Help (Magnum Guide, Take the Tour, Keyboard Shortcuts). Tabs and tiles are in ⌘P and their keys, not the menu bar.

Density and glass

Settings → Appearance → Density (or ⇧⌘L, View → Next Density) makes rows and spacing more or less compact. Liquid Glass floats the sidebar, the session area, the side pane and the terminals as panes of their own, the toolbar's groups on capsules. In the light theme, separators are dots. See Settings and look.

What comes back after a restart

The sidebar's width, its view (Projects, Machines or Automations), its sections and what's folded, your pins, each project's open sessions, tabs and tiles, and the Board as you left it come back. So does the Board beside your session. The window opens at its usual size in the middle of the screen; otherwise the side pane starts closed, terminals ended, and the sidebar shown.