Plugins

A plugin is a small tool that makes layers for you: a moving gradient in your colors, a hand-drawn scene, whatever its maker built. Paraplex comes with a few. You can install more from the community, import your own, or describe one and let Paraplex AI write it.

Open the Plugins window

Click Plugin in the dock. (Hold it and choose Code for a code layer instead; see Code layers.)

The window lists Paraplex's plugins, the ones you installed and the ones you made. Each card shows its icon, what it does, and what it may reach, in plain words.

• Search plugins finds one by its name, its description or its id.
• Browse community ↗ opens the plugins others have shared.
• Learn more ↗ on a card opens its page, with pictures of what it makes.
• Add and its name (Add Doodle, say) puts its layers in your scene. A plugin that uses AI says Generate · uses AI credits instead, and asks for your words first.

Install one from the community

Open a plugin's page from Browse community ↗ or from the Community page, and click Add plugin. The editor opens and shows what it may reach, and its code, before you click Add plugin again. When its maker lists a newer version, its card offers Update.

Change what a plugin made

Select a plugin's layers (they sit in a group of their own) to open its panel. Changing a setting there redraws them.

• Move, retype or keyframe them by hand. A plugin keeps those edits on the layers its maker marked as editable, each time it redraws. The panel says how many layers you've changed.
• Reset hand edits puts those layers back where the plugin draws them, with its own words.
• Lists hold rows, like the steps of a diagram. Edit a row's fields, add one at the foot, move rows with the arrows, or remove one with −.
• Actions are buttons a plugin adds, on its panel or on each row of a list: Add node, say, or Redraw.
• Pictures: a plugin that uses AI can make pictures when it generates or runs an action, each on your AI credits as Generate image is. It keeps them, so changing a setting redraws with the same pictures; only Generate or an action makes new ones.
• What a run costs: when a plugin says what it will ask for, its button reads Generate · about 24 credits, say, and its panel lists the cost of Generate and of each action before you press them. It's an estimate: the model's answer can run a little longer or shorter.
• Detach keeps the layers as ordinary layers and lets the plugin go.

Flow diagram

Flow diagram draws a process or a system as cards joined by lines, laid out for you in columns, with something moving along each line. Add Flow diagram puts a sample in your scene, free; change it from its panel.

• Nodes is the list of cards. Each has a Label, a Detail line, a Kind (Card, Chip, Stat for a big number, Icon tile or a round Hub) and an Icon: a Lucide icon name such as database, bot, chart-line or bell.
• Links joins two nodes, From one To another, with an optional Label. Its Flow is what moves along it: an Arrow, a Pulse that travels to the arrowhead, marching Dashes, or a Dot riding the line.
• Add node after on a row adds a card right after it, already linked from it. Neither it nor the list's own Add node uses credits.
• Draw from words: describe the flow in Words and press it. Paraplex AI writes the nodes and links, replacing the ones in the lists; the panel shows what it costs before you press it.
• Style is Signal, Kelvin, Paper, Blueprint or Design system, which takes its colors from your design system. Accent colors the hubs, numbers, icons and what moves.
• Direction lays the columns Left to right or Top to bottom; Spacing spreads them apart or draws them in.
• Reveal brings the cards in column by column, with the lines drawing on behind them.

Each card is a group you can move by hand: its lines stay attached and follow it.

Comic

Comic makes a comic page: panels with pictures, captions, speech balloons and sound effects, in one drawing style. Add Comic puts a sample page in your scene, lettered but not yet drawn, free.

• Story says what happens. Write from story asks Paraplex AI for the Cast and the Panels, as many as Panels to write, replacing the ones in the lists.
• Cast lists up to 4 characters, each with a Name and a Look. Every picture keeps them looking the same.
• Panels lists up to 6. Each has a Scene (what the picture shows), a Shot (Wide, Medium or Close-up), a Caption, a Speaker and what they say in the Balloon, which Side the speaker is on, and a Sound such as BANG.
• Draw panels draws every panel whose picture no longer matches its words or the style, up to seven at a time, so a whole page in one go; press it again for the rest of a longer feature. The first panel it draws sets the look the others follow. Redraw on a row draws that panel again. The panel shows what each costs before you press it.
• Style is Classic, Ink, Manga, Ligne claire, Noir or Watercolor. Changing it means the panels need drawing again. Pictures is Flash, quicker and cheaper, or Pro, which keeps faces and details steadier for about twice the credits.
• Layout is a Page of rows, a Strip in one row, or a Feature with one tall panel and the rest beside it. Gutter and Border set the space between panels and the line around them.
• Lettering is Marker, Hand or Clean. Halftone lays printed dots over the pictures.
• Push in moves slowly into each picture; Reveal brings the panels in one after another, with the balloons popping on.

The words are text layers, so you can edit them by hand; the pictures never contain words.

Logo reveal

Logo reveal brings your logo in, then your name. Add Logo reveal puts a sample mark and name in your scene, free; it never uses credits.

• Use your logo: drop its SVG into the scene, select it (or the group it came in as), ⌘-click the logo reveal's layer so both are selected, and press Use selected. Use sample goes back to the sample.
• Reveal is how the mark arrives: Draw on traces it as an outline and fills it, Particles gathers it from a cloud of dots, Rise lifts it into place. Glint sends a shine across it once it has landed.
• Wordmark and Tagline follow the mark. Layout is Stacked, Side by side, Mark only or Words only; Type is Sans, Light or Display.
• Mark colors keeps the Logo's own or paints it One color. Mark size, Particles, Text color and Background do what they say.

The mark, the words and the tagline are ordinary layers: move or retype them by hand and they stay so when you change a control.

Kinetic captions

Kinetic captions turns lyrics or captions into big moving type, a line at a time. Add Kinetic captions puts sample lines in your scene, free; it never uses credits.

• Words: a line each. Put a word in \asterisks\ to make it the line's emphasis, in the Accent color and a size up.
• Style is Stomp (tall condensed capitals), Pop, Lyric (softer, smaller) or Typewriter. Letters keeps the style's own case, writes the words As written, or sets them all Upper.
• Timing: with Beats, each line holds Beats a line at the Tempo, and its words land on the beats between; Start is the track's first downbeat. Even spreads the lines over the whole scene.
• Position is Center or Lower third. Size, Text color and Background do what they say.

Each word is its own text layer, so you can restyle or nudge any of them by hand.

Product tour

Product tour shows your app's screens in a phone or a browser window, one after another, with a cursor tapping its way through them and a caption for each. Add Product tour puts three sample screens in your scene, free; it never uses credits.

• Use your screenshots: drop them into the scene, select them in the order they should play, ⌘-click the product tour's layer so it is selected too, and press Use selected. Each screenshot fills the screen's width from its top; a tall one runs past the bottom, cut by the screen's shape. The screenshots you dropped in stay where they are, so hide or delete them. Use sample goes back to the sample screens.
• Screens: a row each, in order. Caption is the words beside or under it; Tap has the cursor press that screen before the next comes in, at Tap across and Tap down (0 to 1 across and down the screen).
• Device is Phone or Browser; Address is the browser's address bar. Captions sit Beside the device, Below it, or not at all (None).
• Transition is how each screen comes in over the one before: Slide, Fade or Cut. Hold is the seconds each screen stays; Start is when the first caption arrives.
• Cursor turns the cursor off. Device size, Caption size, Device color, Accent, Text color and Background do what they say.

Each screen is a group inside the device, so you can open one and change it by hand.

Timeline

Timeline shows milestones along a line, or a roadmap of bars in lanes. Add Timeline puts a sample product roadmap in your scene, free; it never uses credits.

• Milestones: a row each, in order. Title and Detail are the card's words; When is its date or quarter; Status is Done, Now or Next. The line fills in the Accent up to the last milestone that is done or under way, and the one under way pulses.
• Layout is Milestones (cards above and below a line in turn) or Roadmap. On a roadmap each different When is a column, each different Lane a row, and Length is how many columns a bar covers; bars that would overlap in a lane take a row each. Today line draws a line down the column under way.
• Style is Signal, Kelvin, Paper, Blueprint or Design system (your design system's colors). Spacing and Accent do what they say. Reveal draws the line on and brings each milestone in after it.

Each milestone or bar is a group of ordinary layers: move or retype them by hand.

Org chart

Org chart lays people out as a tree from the top, each person over the people who report to them. Add Org chart puts a sample team in your scene, free; it never uses credits.

• People: a row each, with a Name, a Role, and who they Report to. Someone who reports to no one in the list starts a tree of their own. Highlight outlines a person in the Accent and fills their initials with it.
• Initials turns the circles with each person's initials on or off. Style, Spacing and Accent work as they do in the timeline. Reveal brings the chart in level by level from the top, the lines drawing down to each person.

The lines are pinned to the cards: drag a person somewhere else and their lines follow.

KPI board

KPI board lays out a board of numbers: a tile for each metric beside a chart. Add KPI board puts a sample quarter in your scene, free; it never uses credits.

• Metrics: up to six, a tile each. Value is the number, with an optional Prefix (like $) and Suffix (like % or M) and up to two Decimals. Change is what changed since last time (like +12%), colored by Trend: Up in the Accent, Down in red, Flat in gray. Sparkline takes numbers separated by commas, oldest first, and draws them as a small line in the tile.
• Chart is Bar, Line, Area, Donut or None, from Chart data (a Label and a Value for each bar, point or slice) under the Chart title. A donut shows a legend with each slice's share.
• Layout is Bento (the chart large beside the tiles) or Row (the tiles across the top, the chart wide under them). Title goes over the board; leave it empty for none.
• Numbers is Count up (each value counts from zero), Roll (the digits roll like an odometer) or Still (the values as typed).
• Style, Spacing and Accent work as they do in the timeline. Reveal brings the tiles in one after another, then counts the numbers, draws the sparklines and grows the chart.

Each tile is a group of ordinary layers, and each value is a text layer with a number counter. The chart is an ordinary chart: select it and use Edit chart to change its data or how it comes in.

Make or import your own

At the foot of the window:

• Describe a plugin and click Make it · uses AI credits. Paraplex AI writes it and tries it before keeping it. Making a plugin with AI is part of Pro and uses AI credits.
• Import plugin… takes a zip, or a plugin.json with its module. Put an icon.svg or icon.png beside plugin.json to give it an icon; without one, it gets a tile with two letters of its name.

Plugins you make or import are yours alone until you publish them. Download saves one as a zip; Remove takes it out of your library.

Share with your team, or by a test link

Before publishing, you can hand a plugin to the people you work with. Neither way is read by Paraplex first, so each person sees what the plugin can reach and its code, with a note saying so, before they add it.

• Share with and your team's name puts it in the team's library. Everyone in the team finds it under From and the team's name at the bottom of the Plugins window, and clicks Install. Update and the team's copy sends a new version; Take out of and the team's name removes it. Owners and editors share; anyone in the team can install.
• Share a test link makes a link and copies it. Anyone signed in who opens it can add the plugin. Send this version to it updates what the link adds, and Turn off test link stops it working. You can have 5 test links on at once; turn one off to make another.

Copies people already added stay theirs when you take a plugin out of the team or turn off its link.

Publish a plugin

Click Publish… on one of yours. The form asks for what its page will show:

1. Icon: click it to choose an SVG or PNG.
2. Name and a Tagline: one line, up to 80 characters, shown on its card.
3. Pictures: one to six. The first is the cover. Paraplex captures your canvas when the form opens; Capture the canvas takes another, and Add pictures adds your own JPEG, PNG or WebP files. Click Cover on a picture to make it the first.
4. Description: what it does and how to use it.
5. Category and up to five Tags, so people can find it.
6. Why it connects: for each website it reaches, a line saying why. If it uses AI, say what for.
7. Support link (optional): a web page or an email address where people can ask for help.
8. Agree to the terms, then click Send for review.

A person at Paraplex reads every plugin before it's listed, with a summary from an automatic check beside it. Its card says In review until then, and Listed in the community once it's approved. The bell tells you either way.

If it isn't listed, its card says Not listed with review's note. Change what the note asks for and click Publish again….

Take down removes a listed plugin from the community. People who installed it see that it was taken down, and it no longer runs.

Submit from the website

Made a plugin outside Paraplex? Go to Plugins on the website and click Submit a plugin →. Sign in, click Choose its files, and fill in the same form. The plugin is also saved to your library, so you'll find it in the editor.