The Control App
The control app is a separate browser interface for controlling your published design live during a broadcast or event. While the graphic plays at the public URL for your audience, a producer or operator opens the control app to trigger animations and interact with the graphic in real time — without touching the editor.
Accessing the control app
Once you've published at least once, there are two ways to open it:
- Control Panel button in the editor header — saves your latest changes, republishes, and opens the control app in a new tab, all in one click.
- Publish popover → Open Control Panel — opens the control app as it currently stands, without pushing any new changes live first.
Either way, copy the control app's URL from the tab it opens to share it with a production operator.
The control app is only available for HTML5 projects. GDL projects don't get one — GDL designs export as a package for playout hardware rather than publishing to a live web URL, so there's nothing to control live in a browser.
Choosing what operators can control
By default, the control app only shows what you've explicitly exposed. In the editor, select an object and open its Bind tab to choose which properties become operator controls, how they're labelled, and how they're grouped. See Bind.
What operators see and can do
Take it on-air
A large TAKE ON-AIR / TAKE OFF-AIR button is the primary control — it pushes the whole graphic live (or pulls it) with one click. It turns red and pulses while on-air; click again to take it off. This is separate from individual objects' Show/Hide toggles below — for designs with IN/HOLD/OUT states, it drives that state transition; for simpler designs, it's a straightforward visibility toggle for the whole graphic.
Layout: Columns or Stacked
A toggle in the header switches how the control app itself is arranged: Columns (the live preview and the controls side by side) or Stacked (preview on top, controls below in tabs — better for small screens). This is your own view's layout, live — separate from the Dock layout setting described under Sharing access, which sets the default for a shared link rather than changing what you're looking at right now.
Show/Hide, with an audit trail
Every operator-driven object gets a card with a Shown/Hidden toggle. Each card also shows an audit line — who last changed it and when (e.g. "Shown 3m ago by Shankar") — so a second operator picking up mid-show knows the current state at a glance.
If the object is a Frame with operator-driven objects nested inside it, those render as their own cards underneath, dimmed and disabled until the parent Frame is shown — hiding the parent hides everything nested inside it in one action.
Timer and Counter runtime controls
Timer and Counter widgets get their full runtime controls inline — either in their own card, or nested inside their parent Frame's card if they're not independently operator-driven themselves.
Timer: Start/Pause, Reset, Restart, and click the displayed time to set an exact value directly.
Counter: Increment/Decrement (by the configured step, or a custom amount), click the number to type a value directly, Reset, and Undo the last change.
Click a Timer or Counter card to focus it, then use keyboard shortcuts: Space to start/pause, R to reset, Shift+R to restart (Timer); ↑/↓ to step, E to type a value, R to reset, Cmd+Z to undo (Counter). Reset and Restart ask for a confirming tap first.
Bound fields
Any property exposed via Bind that isn't a Timer/Counter action — a text field, a color, a dropdown — appears as a plain input the operator fills in directly.
Quick Actions
If your design has bound number fields (e.g. a home/away score), the control app auto-generates a Reset Scores button that zeros them all in one click. Custom multi-field presets (e.g. a "Halftime" button that sets several fields at once) can also be configured on a data connection.
Judging the look before you're live
Preview background
A background-swatch menu lets an operator preview the graphic against different backdrops — solid colors (including broadcast presets like Rosco chromakey green and blue), gradients, a sample stadium or studio scene, or a custom uploaded image.
This is a local preview only, to judge contrast and color before air — it has no effect on the actual broadcast output, which stays transparent regardless of what's selected here.
Screenshot
A camera icon captures a PNG of exactly what's currently on screen (graphic plus whatever preview background is selected) and downloads it — useful for a quick reference image, social post, or archive, without needing a separate screen-capture tool.
Sharing access
Click the share/output icon to open a drawer with two QR codes and copyable links:
- Output URL — the same published URL from the Publish popover, for adding as a browser source.
- Control Panel Dock — a version of the control app meant to be embedded directly as a custom browser dock inside OBS or vMix (rather than a separate window), or opened on a phone or tablet. Choose whether the link defaults to the Columns or Stacked layout for whoever opens it.
Jumping back to the editor
An Editor button in the control app's header opens the design in the editor directly, for whoever's logged in and has access — no need to navigate back through the Workspace.
Getting help
A Help button opens a drawer with quick reference info, plus the option to start a guided tour — a short walkthrough that points out the on-air button, controls, layout toggle, preview background, screenshot, sharing, and editor link in sequence, right on top of the real interface.
There's also a Send feedback button — a quick 5-point rating with an optional note, sent directly to the CloudMonet team.
Typical workflow
A common live production setup:
- Designer (you) — builds and publishes the graphic in CloudMonet
- Producer / Operator — opens the control app on a separate screen or device
- Broadcast software — has the published graphic URL loaded as a browser source
- During the show, the operator uses the control app to trigger the graphic — the audience sees it appear on screen in real time
This separation means the designer doesn't need to be hands-on during the live show. The control app gives operators a clean, purpose-built interface without exposing the full editor.