Author: Screen

A screen is the template shown for each trial of a phase. You build it once, and PsyCloud fills it with each trial's data at run time. Open it from a trial phase's Screen tab (inside Author), or via Open Screen in the Inspector.

The Screen editor in Canvas view showing the Stroop word 'green' rendered, the step sequence, and the Inspector with the Text component's content bound to trial.word. — The Stroop Trial screen. The Canvas previews trial row 1 of 8; the selected text component is bound to trial.word.

Three ways to edit a screen

The screen has three sub-views over the same content:

Timeline — what happens first, next, and for how long. Edit durations and end rules.
Canvas — where the participant sees things. Lay out and style components visually.
Bindings — how trial data feeds the screen. See and edit every data connection at a glance.

A device selector (Desktop / Laptop / Tablet / Mobile) and a Preview row picker let you check the layout at different sizes and against different trials.

Steps

A screen plays as an ordered sequence of steps. The Stroop Trial screen has two:

Step	Duration	Ends when
fixation	500 ms	Time elapses
Stimulus + Response	up to 2000 ms	The participant responds (or it times out)

The Inspector summarizes the sequence (here: 4 nodes, 2500 ms total). Use Add step to insert fixation, stimulus, response, or feedback steps.

Components

Each step contains components — the text, images, shapes, and response collectors a participant sees and interacts with. Select a component (on the Canvas or in the step) and the Inspector shows its properties, grouped into:

Content / Source — what the participant sees, and where it comes from.
Appearance — font, color, opacity, and so on.
Position & Layout — placement (e.g. centered at 50% / 50%) and size.

Bindings: connecting trials to the screen

A binding is what makes one screen serve many trials. Instead of typing fixed text, you point a property at a trial column.

In the screenshot the selected Text component’s Content Source is set to:

Source: Trial field
Field: trial.word
Preview: green (because Preview row 1 has word = green)

So the component renders whatever each trial's word value is — green, red, and so on — and the ink color comes from another binding to trial.color. The columns you can bind are exactly those produced in Trial Design.

Select a component
Click it on the Canvas (or in the step) to load its properties in the Inspector.
Set the source to a trial field
In Content / Source, choose Trial field and pick the column (e.g. trial.word).
Verify with the preview row
Change the Preview row to confirm the binding resolves correctly across trials.

Edit a shared screen once

The Stroop Trial screen is reused by both Practice and Main Task. Editing it here updates both phases — the Inspector shows its Phase membership so you always know what you're affecting.