Understand Designer as a presentation mode for the same Flowgen canvas, distinguish it from Designer node documents and page kinds, and keep older standalone Designer documents in their compatibility context.
Where: Dashboard → New Project → Designer, or open a Flowgen canvas and switch its presentation.
Before you start
- You need access to the Flowgen project. Editing a connected source still requires permission on that source and its owner.
Key ideas
- Designer is a presentation, not a project type: The Dashboard Designer start creates a media-gen/Flowgen project and opens its canvas in the Designer presentation. The Flow and Designer presentations show the same project and canonical graph; switching the view does not convert the project or fork its sources.
- The Designer presentation foregrounds canvas work: Instead of the node graph, the view navigates documents and outputs owned by the Flowgen canvas. Selecting an item opens its actual owner surface—such as a native Designer document, native Compositor document, website/editor source, text document, operation, record, or result—rather than manufacturing a duplicate project.
- A Designer document still has typed pages: A Designer node or retained legacy Designer document can hold multiple pages. Each page has its own kind and authoring state: website/page, video, image/graphics, ad, deck, motion, document, wireframe, email, dashboard, logo, Media, or Design system. These are document/page kinds, not top-level Dashboard project types.
- Legacy Designer documents remain distinct: Older standalone Designer routes and promoted/linked documents remain available for compatibility. Their preservation does not change the current project model: new Designer starts use the Flowgen canvas project and its Designer presentation.
Steps
- From the Dashboard, choose New Project → Designer when you want to begin in the design-oriented presentation. The created project is still a Flowgen/media-gen canvas.
- To change an existing canvas, use the canvas presentation control to switch between Flow and Designer. Confirm the project and conversation remain the same.
- Use the Designer navigation to choose a source, document, operation, or result. Follow the selected item to its actual owner surface.
- When you open an editor-owned document, make edits there. The source stays attached to its Flowgen node and connected graph; return to the Flow presentation when you need to inspect or change noodles.
- For a Designer document/node, use its page rail to add, name, reorder, or select typed pages. Keep page kind separate from the Flowgen project type.
- Switch back to Flow to inspect graph wiring, add nodes, and manage upstream/downstream operations. The two presentations are views over the same canvas.
- Open older standalone Designer links as legacy documents. Do not expect their historical project route or promotion workflow to describe how a new Designer start is stored.
Three different meanings of “Designer”
- Designer presentation: a view mode for a Flowgen canvas.
- Designer node: a Flowgen node whose owned document is edited in the native Designer surface.
- Designer page kind: the type of a page inside a Designer document (for example deck, ad, motion, or graphics).
- Legacy standalone Designer project: an older route/document retained for compatibility.
What switching the presentation does
- Keeps the same Flowgen project and canvas identity.
- Keeps the same graph and connected source documents.
- Keeps the shared conversation/session rather than opening a second Agent loop.
- Changes which canvas presentation and navigation surface is shown.
- Does not itself edit nodes, run generation, publish, or export.
MCP and the in-product Agent
- A person opens Flowgen’s in-product Agent from the Flowgen left rail.
- MCP clients use the host model with first-class flowgen_* tools; MCP does not open the in-product Agent panel.
- flowgen_open_designer targets an actual Designer node document. It is not the API for switching the Flowgen canvas presentation.
- For the canvas itself, use Flowgen graph/state tools; for a Designer node, use the dedicated Designer tools.
Page and appearance continuity
Shared appearance settings now update across collaborating tabs, while the document-level page-loss guard reverses and names any non-user transaction that would empty a page. Removing an element also removes exposed fields that pointed inside it, preventing dead controls after collaborative or AI edits.
Flowgen canvas presentation and current scope
Designer is now a presentation of the same Flowgen canvas, not a newly created standalone project type. Flow and Designer share the graph, conversation, and source owners. The Dashboard Designer action creates a media-gen project and selects the presentation; the native Designer editor remains reserved for a Designer node document or legacy standalone document.
- The presentation switch is a UI control, not an MCP Designer-document operation.
- The in-progress My work membership and browsing experience is not yet guaranteed to list every canvas source.
- Use Flow canvas search/navigation to locate a source when it is not visible in My work.
Tips
- Use Flow when you need graph wiring and Designer when you want to navigate the canvas’s owned visual work; choose based on the task, not as if they were separate project types.
- After changing a source document, inspect and rerun only the dependent Flowgen branch that needs a new output.
Limitations and important notes
- The Designer presentation is not a standalone authoring document and does not replace the dedicated editor owned by each node.
- A Designer node’s page kinds do not change its parent Flowgen project type.
- Legacy Designer documents may expose routes and behavior that new Dashboard starts no longer use.
- My work membership, navigation, and same-chat continuation are still being integrated; until the complete browse experience is available, do not assume every source is listed there. Use the Flow canvas and its search/navigation as the fallback.
Troubleshooting
I expected the Designer button to create a separate Designer project.
The current Dashboard Designer start creates a Flowgen/media-gen project and opens it in Designer presentation. Check the project in the Dashboard and the same canvas in Flow view.
MCP says Designer is not ready when I only want the canvas view.
flowgen_open_designer is for a Designer node document. Use the Flowgen canvas/state tools for the graph; the presentation switch is a UI view control, not a Designer-node API.
The opened document is not the one I selected.
Use the Designer navigation result’s exact node/output identity and wait for its source to load. Do not substitute another similarly named editor or create a replacement document.