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An app profile can have more than one layer. Lightroom can keep one layer for rating photos and another for editing them, each with its own keys, dial and colour. A key on the pad moves between them, and the switch is instant, also over Bluetooth. To start, select the app’s profile in the sidebar and click Add layer, next to the app’s name above the pad. It needs Studio for Mac 0.6.0 and firmware 0.9.0 or newer: see What you need. An app can have up to 8 layers, and each one takes one of the pad’s 16 layer slots.

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Add a layer

1

Select the app's profile

Click it in the sidebar. An app with one layer shows its name above the pad, with Add layer after the pencil.
2

Add the layer

Click Add layer. Studio adds Layer 2 and opens its name for you to type. Once an app has several layers, click the + after the last tab instead.
3

Name it

Type a name, such as Editing, and press Return. The app’s first layer is now Layer 1: rename it too, such as Rating.
The layers now show as tabs above the pad, in place of the app’s name. Each tab has a colour square and a name. Click a tab to see that layer’s keys and change them: see Change a key. Clicking a tab doesn’t move the pad. A new layer starts with every key on Inherit, which means it does what Default does, not what the app’s other layers do. Change only the keys that should differ. Studio needs the pad connected to add, rename or delete a layer.

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Rename, reorder and delete

Right-click a tab: Delete the layer you’re looking at and you stay on the app’s profile. Delete down to one layer and the tabs give way to the app’s name again. To remove the app’s profile altogether, use Delete profile….

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Move between layers

Studio puts the pad on the app’s layer when the app comes to the front. Keys on the pad then move between that app’s layers.

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With a key

1

Select a key

Click it on one of the app’s layers.
2

Choose Layer

It’s one of the tiles under What should this key do?
3

Choose how it moves

Pick Next layer, Go to or Hold for. For Go to and Hold for, then pick the layer under Which layer.
Next layer is on Default too. There it moves whichever app is in front to its next layer, and does nothing in an app with one layer.
Put the key on each layer you want it on. A key left on Inherit does what Default does, not what the app’s first layer does. With Go to, give the other layer a key that comes back, or use Next layer, which comes round to the first layer by itself.
These keys act only while Studio is running and has the pad on the app. Without Studio, or in an app without a profile, they do nothing. A layer you switched on yourself with a key, such as a numbers layer, stays on while you move between the app’s layers.

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With the dial press

The first time an app gets its second layer, a line appears above the pad: Switch Lightroom’s layers with the dial press? It offers to put Next layer on the dial press of each of the app’s layers, so one press steps to the next layer.
  • Use dial press does it wherever the dial press is still on Inherit. Where you’ve set one yourself, Studio asks first. Keep leaves yours, Replace changes it.
  • Not now leaves everything as it is. Studio doesn’t ask again for that app.
You can put Next layer on the dial press yourself later: the dial press is a key like any other. See The dial.

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Hold for Default

Choose Hold for, then Default, on a key of an app’s layer. While you hold the key, the pad shows Default’s keys, including any the layer has replaced. Let go and it’s back on the layer you were on. Before firmware 0.9.0 this did nothing, because Default is always on underneath. A key set that way before still does nothing. Its Layer tile says so and has a Fix button that makes it the real hold.

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Give each layer a colour

Each layer has its own Colour in the bar above the pad, next to Dial. A layer you add starts lit in the colour of its tab’s square, so you can tell the layers apart by the lights. The pad changes colour as it changes layer. Choose another colour with Colour, as in Key and layer lights. Restore last colour gives back the colour that layer had, not the app’s. A layer can also have key lights of its own.

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Which layer the pad is on

  • The tabs say so. A tab reads Active while the pad is on that layer.
  • The menu bar names it, such as Lightroom · Editing. See Reading the menu bar.
  • Coming back returns you. An app opens on its first layer until you move to another. After that, bring the app back and the pad returns to the layer you used last, also after you quit and reopen Studio. A layer you only held with Hold for doesn’t count.

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In Studio for browser

The pad stores each of an app’s layers under the app’s name and the layer’s, such as Lightroom Rating, shortened if it’s long. That’s the name Studio for browser shows. Rename or delete one there, and Studio for Mac marks the profile Needs repair: see Layers.

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What you need

Several layers for one app need MinimalPad firmware 0.9.0, which Studio for Mac 0.6.0 carries. On older firmware, Add layer says so and offers the update, and an app that already has several layers opens on the one you used last, with no keys to move between them. Studio installs 0.9.0 for you. Your keys, layers, profiles, dial and lights stay as they are, and you don’t need to pair the pad again.