The Stage, the Inspector and History

The screen and its panels

Grapple works on one screen:

On the left: Project, History and Plugins, as tabs.
In the middle: The Viewer over the Timeline. The tabs at the top of the Timeline switch it between Layers, for cutting and arranging, and Graph, where you edit curves.
On the right: Inspector, Controls, Effects, Create and Ape, as tabs. Exports opens here too, as a tab beside the Inspector.

Export, at the top right of the window, opens the Exports panel, and so does File, Export… (Ctrl+M). Opening it leaves the Viewer on the view you chose.

The Window menu lists every panel, ticked when it's on screen: Scopes, Code, Diagnostics and Exports open from there. Panels dock, float and tab. Window, Layout, Reset layout puts them back as they were, and Window, Viewers adds another viewer.

Find any command

Press Ctrl+K for the command palette, which finds any command by name. Help, Keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+/) lists every key, grouped by where it works, with a search field. A command that can't run says why when you point at it.

The Stage and its tools

The Preview panel's canvas is the Stage, where you select, draw and drag. Its tools run down its left edge, and each tool's settings appear in the Inspector's Tool options section. A plugin you pick up joins the end of the rail.

Tools on the Stage
Tool	What it does
Select `V`	Selects and transforms. `Shift`+`W`, `Shift`+`E` and `Shift`+`R` switch its handles to move, rotate and scale. Its options align and distribute the selection.
Hand `H`	Pans the view. The middle mouse button pans with any tool.
Rectangle `R`, Ellipse `E`, Pen `G`	Draw shapes and Paths, or masks on selected footage. See Shapes and paths.
Text `T`	Makes text. See Text and titles.
Crop	Crops a picture. Lock shape keeps its proportions.
Puppet `P`	Bends a picture with pins on a mesh. See the Puppet tool.
Subject Select `W`, Subject Brush, Refine Edge, Brush `B`	Roto: find a subject, rebuild soft edges, paint corrections. See Masks and roto.
Transcript `Y`	Corrects a transcript's words and timing. See Transcripts.

The Tracker is armed from a piece of footage's Tracking section; see Tracking. Esc cancels what you're doing, then returns to Select.

Select and change on the Stage

Click an object to select it, and Shift-click to add to the selection.
Alt-click selects the object underneath; click again to step through everything under the pointer. A note says where you are, such as "2 of 3" and the object's name.
Double-click text to type into it, and double-click a shape or Path to edit its points.
Right-click for the actions on what's under the pointer, such as Convert to path, Copy Path and Paste Path, and Assemble rig.
Space plays and pauses, and , and . step a frame.

Views and preview quality

The menus at the top of the Viewer choose what you see and how it's drawn:

The view menu: Output, the finished picture (0). Work in, the 2D Scene or a 3D view (2 and 3). Look through, any camera. See Work in views.
Preview quality: Resolution: Auto, Full, Half or Quarter. Lens effects, Draft for responsive editing or Final with every effect. Media source: Original, or the Proxy or Optimized media you've prepared. Exports always use originals.
Mask display: Source, Alpha, Overlay, Cutout or Composite, for judging a mask's edge.
Show: Overlays such as the Reference grid and Camera and light guides.

F fits the picture, Shift+F frames the selection, and Ctrl+F is cinema mode. If a layer can't be drawn in the current view, Grapple draws everything else and shows a note naming how many layers aren't shown, with the reason and what to do.

Bring media in

Choose File, Import Media…, or drag files onto the Project panel. They appear in the Project panel, which lists assets, compositions and folders.
Drag a row onto the Timeline to place it there. Or select it and choose Place at playhead (Enter), or Place with options… to choose more.
If a file has moved, its menu offers Relink…: point it at the file and every use follows. Replace media… swaps a file for another.

For heavy footage, Prepare proxy media and Prepare optimized media make lighter copies for the Viewer to play.

The Inspector

The Inspector shows what's selected, one row per property, in sections that open and close and remember it. Some sections appear only for what's selected: Footage, Masks, Tracking and Camera solve on footage, Nested composition on a nested composition, Transition on a cut.

Beside each animatable value are the previous-key arrow, the keyframe diamond and the next-key arrow. See Keyframes and the Graph.
Each row's More menu, or a right-click on the row, has Reset, Set exact value, Add expression, Drive with, Show in timeline, Copy value and Paste value, and on an animated property Add or remove keyframe.
A driven row shows the value the renderer uses and says what drives it, such as "Driven by" a driver's name, or "Set by an expression". An edit that would be overwritten is refused, with a sentence saying where to make it.
Select several objects to edit them together.

Transform's Add menu adds placement relations: Follow path, Attach to and Parent. See Parenting, rigs and Controls.

History

Every change is a step in the History tab, and every step says who made it: you or Ape. Ctrl+Z undoes your own latest step, even while Ape is working. Each step's menu has:

Undo this, Redo this: Take back just that step. If later work depends on it, History shows what else would change first.
Go to this step: Take the project back to how it stood at that step. Restore project to here does it for the whole project, and Revert composition to here for one composition.
Compare this step with now: See what has changed since.
Show changed items in the Timeline: Select what the step touched.

Add checkpoint names the point the project is at, so you can find it again; Checkpoints only shows just those. Filter History to one composition, or to the past minute, hour or day. An Ape run is one row with Undo run, which takes the whole run back.