JSON2VIDEO Documentation Saving your work
The Editor keeps your work in two different places, and it is worth knowing which is which: a local draft that happens automatically in your browser, and a template on the server that you save deliberately.
The local draft
About a second after you stop typing, the Editor mirrors the document into your browser's local storage. Closing the tab, reloading the page or a browser crash cannot lose your work.
The next time you open the Editor, it offers the draft back:
Restore picks up where you left off. Discard throws the draft away and starts clean.
Three things to know about the draft:
- It lives in one browser, on one machine. It is not synced to your account, so it does not follow you to another computer, another browser, or a private window. Only a saved template does that.
- There is one draft at a time. Two tabs editing two different documents overwrite each other's draft. Nothing that was already saved to the server is affected, but only the last-written draft can be restored.
- While the JSON view holds text that does not parse, the draft keeps the last valid version of the document.
The save-state dot
The dot next to the document name in the topbar reports where the document stands:
| Dot | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Amber | Not on the server — the work exists only as a local draft |
| Grey check | Saved to the server as a template |
| Red | The local mirror itself failed — storage is full or disabled |
Clicking the dot saves, exactly like Template → Save.
Saving to the server
Saving to the server is always an explicit action, from the Template menu:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| New | Starts a blank movie |
| Open template… | Opens one of your saved templates |
| Save (⌘S / Ctrl+S) | Overwrites the open template, with no dialog |
| Save as template… | Always creates a new template, so it doubles as "duplicate" |
| Import JSON… | Loads a .json file from your computer |
| Export JSON | Downloads the current document as a .json file |
Save is only available once the document is a template — on a new document it is greyed out, and Save as template… is what you want.
There is deliberately no automatic save to the server. An automatic write would replace your last known-good template with whatever half-finished state you happened to be in, and two open tabs would overwrite each other without either of them noticing. Saving stays a decision you make.
Saved templates appear in Templates in the dashboard, and can be rendered from the API by ID.
Working without an account
Import and export need no account at all. The Editor opens a .json file from
your computer, edits it, previews it and writes it back out — a perfectly good
workflow if you keep your movies in a repository rather than in your JSON2Video
account.
Signing in adds the four things that need the API: opening and saving templates, browsing your own media, and rendering.