The Main Window is where you add sources, start and stop streams, and watch system health — it's what Pulsar opens to. The layout has three parts: a header across the top, a source-row workspace in the middle, and a footer along the bottom.
The header (top bar)
The header shows system status and gives you the timecode, notifications, About, and the PIN lock.
Health dot — green / yellow / orange / red status. Hover for a tooltip explaining the current state.
Assistance chip — appears when Orbit clients are asking for help, showing how many.
Orbit Monitor and Pulse Messenger — appear when Orbit is running.
Timecode — master timecode readout. Open its dropdown to set Mode (Machine, NTP, Free-run, or Tentacle BLE), FPS, and start/offset values. You can hide it from Settings if you don't need it.
Notifications bell — opens the Notifications panel; the badge shows recent items.
Version text — click to open About (see below).
Padlock — set, lock, or unlock the PIN. A LOCKED pill shows when locked.
The workspace (source rows)
The middle of the window is your workspace. Each source lives on its own row, labelled A through Z (up to 26 rows).
When the workspace is empty, you'll see a Set up a source prompt.
Click Set up a source (or the + button in the footer once you have rows).
Pick a source type:
NDI — NDI sources
GUI (screen / camera / testcard) — Screen, camera & testcard
SRT input — SRT input
GEN (generated testcard) — Screen, camera & testcard
EXT (hardware capture) — Hardware capture
FILE (BETA) — File sources
UE (Unreal Engine, BETA) — Unreal Engine
The new source appears as a labelled row.
For everything you can do inside a row, see Rows & sources.
To use FILE or Unreal Engine sources, turn them on first in Settings → Beta Features.
The footer (bottom bar)
The footer holds your stream controls and a few tools.
START ALL / START SELECTED — start every row, or just the selected ones.
STOP SELECTED / STOP ALL RUNNING — stop the selected rows, or everything running.
Add row (+) — add another source row.
Pipeline Flow — opens the pipeline-flow view. See Monitoring & preview.
Settings cog — opens Settings.
Orbit Device Control — controls Orbit devices when Orbit is running. See Orbit streaming.
ML Monitor — opens the ML monitor when ML detection is running. See ML detection.
Common tasks
Run a streaming session
Click Set up a source (or +) and choose a source type.
Configure the row's source and output (see Rows & sources and Outputs).
Click START ALL or START SELECTED to go live, and STOP SELECTED / STOP ALL RUNNING to end.
Lock the window for live operation
Click the padlock and set a PIN.
The window becomes read-only and a LOCKED pill appears — you can monitor everything but can't change it.
Click the padlock again and enter your PIN to unlock. See Security & PIN lock.
Notifications & About
Notifications. Brief toast messages pop up during operation and are logged to the bell. Click it to open the Notifications panel, a running log of recent items. Clear All empties the log (you'll be asked to confirm, since cleared items can't be recovered).
About. Click the version text in the header to open About. From here you can:
Check for updates — Pulsar updates itself. Click Download when a newer version is offered; the download continues in the background, and you restart Pulsar to install it.
System Dependencies & Firewall — check NDI/SRT dependency and firewall info. See Installation & setup.
Contact Support — opens an email. It doesn't attach your logs, so include any details support needs yourself; see Troubleshooting for what to gather.
When an update is available, expand What's new to read the release notes.
Closing Pulsar (macOS)
Pulsar runs a menu-bar (tray) icon. By default, closing the window hides Pulsar to the menu bar instead of quitting, so your streams keep running. Click the tray icon for Start All, Start Selected, Stop Selected, Stop All Running, plus Show Pulsar, Hide to Menu Bar, and Quit Pulsar. To fully quit, choose Quit Pulsar (or press ⌘Q). You can change the close behaviour in Settings.
Tools menu
The Tools menu leads to Pipeline Benchmark. See Benchmark.
Tips
Locking hides editing controls. While the window is locked, the settings cog and + button disappear until you unlock — that's expected.
The + button isn't tied to streaming. You can add rows while streams are running.
Need dependency or firewall info? Open About → System Dependencies & Firewall.
Related pages
Rows & sources
Orbit streaming
Pulse Messenger
Monitoring & preview
Benchmark
ML detection
Security & PIN lock
Settings & configuration
Glossary