Layouts

A layout decides how a slide arranges its content. Tachyonn ships with eleven of them, covering the patterns you reach for most: plain content, two columns, a big statistic, a code window, and so on.

Every ## slide uses the standard layout unless you say otherwise. To pick a different one, you have two options:

• Add /layout[name] right after the title, or
• Set layout: name in the slide's per-slide frontmatter.

## A slide with two panels
/layout[two-column]

Left column.
---
Right column.

The --- separator splits content into the layout's regions (columns, image-and-text sides, etc.). Let's go through each layout.

title — Cover

Generated automatically from your frontmatter. It centers the title, subtitle, and author. By default it shows no footer. You rarely write this one by hand:

===
title: Quantum Physics
subtitle: An Introduction
author: Prof. Ana Souza
===

Extra content on the cover: coverBody:

title, subtitle and author are the only fields the cover prints — date:
and description: are deck metadata for the footer tokens ({date},
{description}), not cover text. For anything else, write a body for the
cover with coverBody:. Each occurrence of the key is one line of .tac, so
repeating it gives you line breaks, blank lines (new paragraph), lists and
images — the full language, not just a string:

===
title: Quantum Physics
subtitle: An Introduction
author: Prof. Ana Souza
coverVariant: split
coverImage: cover.jpg

coverBody: Class 4 — **Tuesdays, 2pm**
coverBody:
coverBody: - Room B-204
coverBody: - Bring the lab notebook
coverBody:
coverBody: ![<w=140> logo.png]
===

In the split / stacked variants this lands in the text column, under the
title block; in centered it sits below the author. If you prefer a single key,
a literal \n also breaks the line: coverBody: First line\n\nSecond paragraph.
Size and spacing: coverBodySize: / coverBodyGap:.

A cover written by hand (/layout[cover], below) takes its body from the slide
itself and ignores coverBody: — that key exists precisely because the
automatic cover has no body of its own.

cover — a cover anywhere

/layout[cover] is an alias of title that drops a full cover slide in the
middle of the deck — perfect for one big .tac holding several lectures, each
opened by its own cover. Set the cover variant: and image: in the slide's own
=== (the same knobs as the deck cover: centered · image-bg · image-title
· split · stacked · minimal):

## Lecture 2 — Thermodynamics
/layout[cover]
===
variant: split
image: cover.jpg
coverSplitWidth: 35%
===

Entropy and the arrow of time

- Room B-204, Tuesdays
- Prof. Ana Souza

![<w=140> logo.png]

Two knobs make this layout flexible:

• Anything you write in the body lands in the text column, below the title,
  subtitle and author — paragraphs, lists, an image (a course logo), whatever you
  need. Tune it with coverBodySize: and coverBodyGap:. The deck's automatic
  cover has no body: it is generated from the frontmatter, so use /layout[cover]
  (with cover: false in the frontmatter, or simply as the deck's first slide)
  when you want one.
• coverSplitWidth: (aliases coverSplit, splitWidth) sets how much of the
  slide the media takes — a width in split, a height in stacked. Default
  50%. Set it in the slide's own ===, in the deck frontmatter, in a
  tac.config, or in a .tt theme, like any other style key.

section — Section divider

Created by a # heading. A solid background with a centered title, used to announce a new chapter. No footer by default.

# Part I — Foundations

The deck-wide sectionVariant sets the style of every divider, but a section can
override its own in its === — and opt out of the index entirely with
toc: false (handy for an appendix):

# Appendix
===
variant: centered
toc: false     // this section won't appear in the index on the other dividers
===

The variants: centered (default), toc and toc-side (an index of every
section, the current one highlighted), number (a big chapter numeral),
backdrop (styled for a background image or video), color-block and
bigtype.

color-block — the divider as a block of color

The whole slide becomes a flat fill of the accent color with the title in
negative, left-aligned and anchored a little above the middle. The cut between
parts of the talk comes from color, not from ornament — it reads instantly
from the back of the room and needs no image.

# Codebase Q&A
===
variant: color-block
kicker: Getting your feet wet
===

kicker: (aliases overline:, eyebrow:) is the short line above the title —
context in small type, without competing with the title. It works on the other
variants too, not just this one.

Key	What it changes
sectionBlockColor	The fill (defaults to the deck accent)
sectionBlockTextColor	Title and kicker over the fill
sectionBlockSize	Title size on this variant (default 5rem)
kickerSize / kickerColor / kickerFont	The overline

Set them deck-wide, in a .tt theme, or in one divider's own === — which
is how you give each part of the talk its own color:

# Part II — Thermodynamics
===
variant: color-block
sectionBlockColor: #123a5f
sectionBlockTextColor: #f4f7fb
===

bigtype — the typography is the slide

The title alone, as large as it fits, wrapping over as many lines as it needs,
anchored bottom-left with the kicker above it. No fill, no ornament: the impact
comes from scale. It is the section-divider sibling of the cover's minimal.

# Part III — Quantum states
===
variant: bigtype
kicker: Parte III
sectionBigTypeSize: 8rem     // optional; default 7rem
===

standard — Standard slide

The default. A title at the top, free-flowing content below — paragraphs, lists, images, code, anything.

## The problem

Compile time directly affects how productive the team feels.

- Average build: 45 seconds
- Perceived as: far too slow

two-column — Two columns

Splits content into a left and right column, separated by ---.

## Comparison
/layout[two-column]

**Markdown**
- Simple
- No layouts
- Exports to HTML

---

**Tachyonn**
- Just as simple
- Eleven layouts
- A native app

three-column — Three columns

Three panels, each separated by ---.

## Three approaches
/layout[three-column]

### Approach A
Text...

---

### Approach B
Text...

---

### Approach C
Text...

image-and-text — Image beside text

An image on one side, text on the other. Choose the side with imageSide: left or imageSide: right in the per-slide frontmatter.

## Our product
===
layout: image-and-text
imageSide: left
===

![product.png]

---

Descriptive text next to the image.

- Benefit one
- Benefit two

big-number — Headline number

Perfect for a single statistic. A large number, centered, with a label beneath it.

## Global adoption
/layout[big-number]

**87%**
of users would recommend it

quote — Quotation

A centered quotation with an attribution.

## A perspective

> Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
— Leonardo da Vinci

The box takes 70% of the slide width and is centered, whatever the length of
the quotation — so two quote slides in a row line up instead of each finding its
own width. Change it with quoteWidth:, and the type size with quoteSize::

## A longer perspective
===
layout: quote
quoteWidth: 85%
quoteSize: 2.2rem
===

> …

grid — Card grid

Lays items out in a grid. Set the number of columns with columns: N in the per-slide frontmatter (the default is 3).

## Our stack
===
layout: grid
columns: 3
===

**Rust** — backend and parser

**Vue 3** — frontend

**Tauri** — desktop shell

**Nuxt 4** — rendering

**Shiki** — syntax highlighting

**drauu** — vector drawing

code-window — Code spotlight

A layout dedicated to a single code sample, presented in a styled window with an optional title.

## The parser entry point
===
layout: code-window
===

```rust
fn parse(input: &str) -> AST {
    let tokens = lexer(input);
    parser().parse(tokens)
}
```

media — Full-bleed media

Centers a single image (or video) to fill most of the slide. No footer by default.

## Architecture diagram
/layout[media]

![<f> architecture.png, A bird's-eye view of the system]

Setting layout per slide

Besides /layout[name], you can use the per-slide frontmatter block right after the title — handy when you also want to set other options like columns or imageSide:

## Comparing data
===
layout: two-column
===

Left column.
---
Right column.