Why the Current Line Stays Fixed in the Middle of the Screen

If you look at our playback screen, the current line is not at the top. It sits in the middle, inside a thin orange band, while the rest of the script scrolls upward past it. That is a deliberate design choice, and it comes from a specific problem we wanted to avoid.

The problem: losing your place

When a screen scrolls like a document, the line you are reading keeps moving up and off the top. Your eye has to chase it, and every time the text shifts, your brain spends a moment relocating. On a short script that is fine. On a ten-minute talk it is the difference between reading smoothly and repeatedly losing the sentence you were on.

Our approach: fix the reading line, move the text

Instead of moving your eyes, we move the text. The active line stays pinned in the middle of the screen inside a transparent orange band with a solid border. The lines scroll past it. The line you are on is always in the same physical position, so your gaze never travels — you read the band, and the band tells you where you are.

Two details matter here. First, the surrounding lines fade with distance, so the current line stands out without you having to look for it. Second, the highlighted line is derived from the scroll position, not the other way around, so the highlight and the text can never drift apart.

Where this works best

• •Long scripts where losing a line costs you a sentence.
• •Live delivery where you cannot pause to find your place.
• •Reading at a distance, where your eye has less margin for error.

Where it falls short

A centred band shows less text above and below than a document view, so if you like to scan several lines ahead, this layout gives you fewer of them. It also assumes a single reading line, which is right for speech but wrong for skimming. If you mostly skim rather than read aloud, a plain scrolling document may suit you better.

The design bet is simple: your eyes should stay still and the words should move. Anything that makes your gaze travel is a cost you pay on every line.

You do not configure this — it is how playback works. If it does not fit how you read, that is useful to know, and it is good feedback for us.