#Appearance

The Appearance page is where you visually build your stream overlay. You arrange every widget on a single layout area called the canvas, and 4thRock renders the result to the one overlay you added to OBS. There are no separate per-widget overlays to manage: arrange everything here, and it appears together.

If you have not added your overlay to OBS yet, do that first in Set Up Your Overlay.

#Arrange widgets on the canvas

The canvas is a live representation of your stream's safe area. To place a widget, drag it onto the canvas, then drag it again to reposition it. Grab a corner or edge handle to resize it. Position alerts, captions, chat, and any other widgets exactly where you want them on screen.

For the visual styling of an individual widget - its fonts, colors, and sizes - open that widget's own Appearance tab. The canvas controls where a widget sits and how big it is; the widget's Appearance tab controls how it looks. See Widgets for what each one does.

#Layers and stacking order

The layers panel lists every widget on the canvas. The order in the panel is the stacking order: items higher in the list draw on top of items below them. Reorder the layers when two widgets overlap and you need one in front - for example, keeping an alert above your chat box. Use the panel to select, show, or hide a layer while you work.

#Modes

Use modes to keep more than one layout ready at once. Switch modes to swap the whole arrangement on the canvas - for example, a "Just Chatting" mode and a "Gameplay" mode with widgets placed differently. Switching modes changes what your single overlay shows without touching OBS.

#Presets

Save your current arrangement as a preset so you can reuse it later. Apply a saved preset to load that arrangement back onto the canvas. Presets let you build a few trusted setups and switch between them quickly.

#Live preview

The preview shows your overlay exactly as viewers will see it, updating as you drag, resize, restack, and switch modes. When the preview looks right, your changes are already live on the single overlay in OBS - no need to re-add or refresh the source.