Layout Persistence
NEXUS remembers how you left your panes — per workspace — and restores that arrangement the next time you open it, rather than starting every workspace from a blank grid.
What's remembered, per workspace
| Remembered | Detail |
|---|---|
| Pane arrangement | The split shape and the ratios between panes. |
| Focused pane | Which pane was active. |
| Focus Mode state | Whether Focus Mode was on. |
| Inspector | Its width, and whether it was collapsed. |
| Sidebar | Its collapsed state. |
| Column count | Your chosen grid preset (2, 3, or 4 columns). |
All of the above is scoped per workspace — see Workspaces for how switching workspaces restores each one's own layout independently, without one bleeding into another.
What's remembered at the window level
Two things persist above any single workspace: the window's size and position, and which workspace was last active. Relaunching NEXUS reopens the window where it was and switches you back to that workspace, which then restores its own layout from the table above.
Saving is continuous
NEXUS doesn't wait for you to quit before saving your layout. Nearly every change you make queues a save within well under a second, with additional saves guaranteed when the app moves to the background or quits — so a crash or a forced quit loses, at most, your most recent moment of rearranging, not the session's whole layout.
What this means in practice
Because Focus Mode state is remembered alongside the underlying grid, relaunching NEXUS with a workspace left in Focus Mode brings you back to exactly that: one pane filling the window, with the rest of the grid intact underneath it and ready the moment you toggle Focus Mode off again. The same goes for the Inspector — if you'd resized or collapsed it before quitting, it comes back exactly as you left it rather than resetting to a default width.
Where to go next
- Splitting & Focus — how the arrangement this page restores gets created in the first place.
- Workspaces — why persistence is scoped per workspace rather than app-wide.
- The Inspector — the panel whose width and collapsed state persist alongside the pane grid.