The terminal: panels, lanes and layouts

Find anything

The finder finds a ticker, a panel, a tab or a command — and lists what is open on this desk and your other layouts, so it is also how you jump between panels. Press ⌘ K (Ctrl+K on Windows) or the ` key to open it; W opens it on what is open. To add a panel, Add panel beside the command field (or M) opens the panel list instead — every panel by category, each with a line saying what it is. Type a ticker, a panel's name or its code (WL, CH, DES…), a tab code (EARN opens the Calendar on its Earnings tab) or a command such as Tidy the desk, and Enter opens the first result.

A bare ticker opens the Company Profile on that symbol — or retargets the one you have — and moves lane A with it, so every panel on A follows. "NVDA B" sends the ticker to lane B instead. "NVDA CH" opens a Chart on NVDA in lane A, "NVDA CH B" the same in lane B, and "NVDA CH PIN" an Independent Chart on NVDA that no lane can move ("NVDA PIN" does it for the profile). While the finder is open, the four chips under the line — A, B, C and PIN — or Option 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 write that scope onto whatever you typed, so "NVDA QT" becomes "NVDA QT B". Clicking a ticker in any table moves that panel's lane to it (lane A for a panel on no lane): a Chart on that lane already on screen is the answer, and only when none is does the Company Profile open on that symbol.

Star a panel to keep it under Favorite panels in the left sidebar — with the star on its own title bar, beside it in the panel list, or on its row in the finder. Drag an entry up or down to set the order (Option + ↑ / ↓ does the same from the keyboard).

Lanes

Panels on the same lane share a ticker. There are three lanes — A is yellow, B is blue, C is violet — and a new panel joins A, so one typed ticker moves the whole desk; B and C run a second and a third. The coloured dot in a panel's title bar is its lane: click it to move the panel to another lane, or to make it Independent. An Independent panel keeps its own ticker whatever the lanes do, ignores the finder's ticker commands, and changes only from its own title bar — click the ticker there, or press S on the focused panel. A few panels built to exist many at once, such as the Quote Tile, open Independent by default so each copy holds its own ticker; give one a lane explicitly ("NVDA QT B") when you do want it to follow.

Layouts

The left sidebar lists your layouts under two headings: Presets — Watch the open, Research one company, Read the board, Follow the money, Plan a trade, always in that order, under those names — and Your layouts, every one you have made, up to five. Click one, or press Option + 1…9, to go to it; Option + [ and Option + ] step through the list. On a screen narrower than 1,440 pixels the sidebar opens over the desk, so a preset keeps its room, and puts itself away when you pick something; while it is closed, the menu on the desk's name in the header lists every layout. The presets sit under a cyan lock and light in cyan, and the panel area wears a thin cyan frame while you are on one: their own panels stay put — no moving, resizing, closing or minimizing, though tickers, tabs and full screen still work — and anything you add floats on top, free to move and close, and stays on top when you click one of the preset's panels. New blank desk, at the top of the sidebar, or N, gives you an empty desk with no name — Untitled, until you save it. The header always names the desk you are on and says whether it is saved: Preset, Saved, Edited or Not saved. One of your own layouts changes only when you save it: move, add or close a panel and it reads Edited, and its row in the sidebar wears an amber dot; Save (⌘ S) keeps the changes, Save as new (⌘ Shift S) keeps them as another layout, and the menu on its name in the header can discard them. Unsaved changes stay with the layout when you go elsewhere, and follow you to other devices. On a preset or the blank desk, Save opens a small box with a name already filled in, and Enter keeps the desk as a layout of your own, every panel free to move — that is how a preset becomes one you can arrange. Everything else you can do to a layout is on its own row: hover it and press ···, or right-click it. One of yours can be renamed (F2), duplicated, moved up or down (Option + ↑ / ↓, or drag its grip) or deleted (Delete), with an Undo; a preset can be reset, which takes off what you added, or copied as your own. L takes you to the list, with the keyboard on New blank desk, so L then Enter is a blank desk. A layout saved on one screen and opened on another is scaled to fit and otherwise left exactly as you arranged it. Undo (⌘ Z) and redo (⌘ Shift Z) cover every change to the layout you are in.

Arrange

A new panel opens in the first empty space big enough for it; when there is none, it opens on top of the desk, centred, and nothing already there moves — drag it where you want it (with Fluid on, dropping it into a gap fills the gap). Close a panel and, with Fluid on (P — on unless you turn it off), the panels that line up with it grow back into its space; undo puts it all back. Drag a panel by its title bar and resize it by any edge. Panels snap to each other, the canvas edges and the background grid, and while one moves it shows its size and the distance to each neighbour, with a matching distance lit so spacing stays consistent. Double-click a title bar to maximize, and again to restore it exactly where it was (the finder also carries Maximize window and Minimize window for the focused panel). Fill space (F), in the title bar of the focused panel, grows it into the empty area beside it — panels layered on top of each other do not block it — and the pin locks a panel in place: a pinned panel ignores dragging, Tidy, Fluid and maximizing.

Everything that rearranges the whole desk is in the Arrange menu on the right of the header, and each row shows its key. Tidy (T) re-grids the desk: it reads the columns and rows your panels already form, spreads them to the canvas edges and resizes as it goes; pinned panels sit it out. Fluid (P) keeps the desk tiled, and is on unless you turn it off: a gray ghost previews exactly where a dragged panel will land — drop into a gap and it fills it; drop where there is no room and it stays where you dropped it — a shared edge between neighbours resizes both at once, and closing a panel gives its space to its neighbours; a "Fluid · on" chip beside Arrange says so. Hold Shift or ⌘ while dragging to move freely instead. Align… (G) opens a pad that pushes whatever you have hold of — the selected panels, or the focused one — into any corner, edge or the centre; select two or more and it also lines up their edges, spaces them evenly or matches their sizes to the focused one. Blue lines mark the centre of the canvas while you move something; Centre guides in the same menu pins them on. Exposé (E) shows every open panel at once — click one to focus it.

The first click on an inactive panel selects it; click again to work in it. Shift or ⌘ click adds panels to a selection — or drag a box on the empty canvas to lasso them — then drag any one to move them all, and a double tap of Esc closes them all. Hold Option and double-click a title bar to grab its whole column, and drag it past another to reorder them. From the keyboard, Arrow Key moves the active panel a step at a time, stopping on the first alignment it would cross; Shift + Arrow Key resizes it; Option + Arrow Key moves it in fine steps with snapping off. Nothing rearranges on its own: a bigger browser window is simply more canvas, and a smaller one scales the desk down so nothing ends up off screen — it comes back exactly where it was when you widen out again.

Minimized panels

Minimize sends a panel to the strip at the bottom left of the canvas as a chip and gives the desk its space back; click the chip — or pick the panel in the finder — to bring it back exactly where it was. Option + Shift + 1…9 jumps straight to a panel by its number, restoring it if it is minimized — the numbering changes only when you open or close a panel, never as you move or minimize them. A HootAI panel lifted into its own window (⌘ Shift O) parks a chip here too.

Session

The clock in the header keeps Eastern time, and its dot says whether the regular session is open. EXT beside it (X) shows the pre-market or after-hours print as the price on every panel at once, with the regular close as context; switch it off to see the close itself. When the data is not streaming — delayed, polling, or limited to your plan — a word appears beside the clock saying which, and clicking it lists every panel's mode. Price alerts do not follow EXT — they watch the session you chose under Alerts → Settings (also on Account → Preferences), so glancing at the close never changes when you get woken up.

HootAI

HootAI (A) is the chat that can see your desk; the first of your favorite panels in the sidebar, or A, opens it with the composer ready. Each HootAI panel is its own conversation, and what it knows about is explicit: the Reading row above the message box shows what it will be told, and a panel, a highlight or a file is attached deliberately, never assumed. Highlight any text in a panel and a bubble offers to explain it. ⌘ \ splits a second conversation beside the first; ⌘ Shift O lifts the panel into its own window you can drag to another screen, and it keeps the conversation it was on. Each question costs AI credits: the price is on the send arrow and your balance is in the panel's header. A suggestion fills the message box; Enter asks it. The Pre-Market Board with its morning brief (B) and the AI report (R) open from the keyboard anywhere, and Research Reports sits in the sidebar as a favorite panel.

The Guide and Learn

Guide (I) in the header holds Getting started: the tour of the desk, about two minutes, where each step is something you do and Next appears once you have done it, plus three short chapters. Each one picks up where you left it and runs on a practice desk, so your own panels stay as they are. Below them, the full course on using the terminal docks beside the canvas, never over it, with this keystroke table on its Help tab; a lesson step that asks you to do something on the desk is checked against your real panels. Learn ↗ in the account menu opens the whole course library on its own pages — it is a door, like Manage: the desk saves itself on the way out and is exactly as you left it when you come back.

Notifications and alerts

An alert is a rule you wrote — "tell me when NVDA crosses 200" — and the alerts count in the header counts rules that have fired and are not yet cleared, however many messages a firing sent. Clearing, re-arming or deleting the rule takes it out of the count; reading it does not, because you may be away from the desk when a level goes. The bell counts messages: a trade that filled or stopped, news on a watchlist name, a report that finished, a digest. Which of them reach the row, a browser pop or your inbox is set on Account → Alerts.

Manage

Manage ↗ in the account menu opens the pages that are not the market: your account (profile, alerts, preferences, subscription, security), your membership, and, if you administer one, your organization and its consoles. The entry shows only when there is somewhere for you to go, and lands on the first console you can open. It is a door, not a panel: the desk saves itself on the way out and is exactly as you left it when you come back. A preset can be put back as it started from its ··· menu in the sidebar (Reset).