The habit
You start a screen from a frame you already trust. In Figma that is a duplicated phone. In Illustrator it is last quarter's file with the words deleted. The version that does not wreck yesterday's tab is a local starter: real frames, real type, real stacking, opened as a new document.
The vector side already has this as 52 designs. Welcome → + Vector, or File → Template library. Search, filter nine categories, pick a size, Use this template. They open unsaved, with editable paper, artwork, and copy. Existing work stays in its tab. Fonts come from the machine. No network. Very small sizes drop secondary lines that would be unreadable.
The layout habit is the same gesture and a different set of files. A phone screen is not a poster with the type swapped. It is frames, nested, some of them already stacking, some of them already pinned.
The constraint
One template system has to live inside one binary. No download at the moment you pick a card. No account. The files are built in the app from the starter definitions and the size you asked for. They open unsaved, so saving is a decision you make with Ctrl+S and a path, into a .oma that is yours. The tab you were drawing in stays where it was.
The tweet that introduced these starters folded them into "the same 52-template system." The manual draws the line, and the manual wins. + Layout on the welcome screen opens frame-based starters. + Vector opens the 52. File → Template library → Layout starters is where the frame set remains while you are already drawing. Raster is a size chooser, not a template card. The 52 are vector compositions. The layout set is five documents made of frames.
Those five are:
Fieldwork · responsive prototype. A complete responsive site with components, hover variants, and linked screens.
Mobile screen. A phone frame with a stacked header, a hero image, and an action row.
Landing hero. A wide hero with a stretching copy column and a pinned call to action.
Dashboard. Sidebar navigation with a stretching content pane and metric cards.
Card stack. A vertical auto-layout of product cards inside a marketing frame.
They are included in the template library the way the 52 are included: local, immediate, no network, a card you click. They are not entries 48 through 52 of the vector bank. Searching the vector categories will not turn the dashboard into a poster. Opening a layout starter switches you to the Layout persona, selects the Move tool, marks the new document unsaved, and fits the canvas. The status line says "Layout template ready · frames stay nested and editable."
There is also a direct button when the Layout inspector has nothing selected: Open Fieldwork starter. That one builds Fieldwork at 1280 × 900, 96 DPI. The library path lets you choose a size the way the other templates do. Blank frames, if you only wanted a sized box, are the Phone, Tablet, and Desktop buttons under that same empty inspector: 390 × 844, 768 × 1024, and 1440 × 900. Those are empty frames inserted into the current document. They are not the five starters. The starters are whole documents.
What landed
From the welcome screen, + Layout shows the frame starters. The Layout file icon next to it is a blank size chooser, for when you want an empty board and you will draw the frames yourself with F. From inside the editor, File → Template library, then Layout starters, lists the same five. Search and size controls belong to the library. Previews adapt to the proportions you pick. Click a card and Use this template, or double-click the card.
The new document gets the frames, the stacks, and the pins the starter defined. Mobile screen is already a vertical stack. Landing hero already stretches the copy column and pins the call to action. Dashboard already stretches the content pane. Card stack is already a vertical auto-layout. Fieldwork is the long one: components, hover variants, linked screens. You edit them as ordinary frames. Shift+A, gap, padding, and the Min / Max / Stretch / Center / Scale pins are the same controls as on a frame you drew by hand. Nothing in the starter is frozen.
Type in a starter is type. You replace it. Fonts resolve from the machine, the same rule as the 52. A missing face gets picked in the Character studio. The starter does not require a .omabrand directory to open.
Existing work stays in its tab. The starter does not wipe the poster you had open. Close the starter tab if you opened it by accident. You had not saved it, so closing is a discard of a document that was never a file. The other tab is still dirty or still saved, exactly as it was.
All 52 vector designs remain available from + Vector and from the template library's vector side. The weekly drop plan in the docs proposes an order and a remix prompt for each of those 52. It does not publish posts, and it does not schedule the layout starters. The layout five are in the app now, the same way the 52 are in the app now.
Cloud is not involved. You can later push a project if you sign in. The act of opening a starter does not upload it. Unpublished work stays on the machine.
In the hand
You are in a logo file. You need a phone mockup beside that thinking, in its own tab.
File → Template library → Layout starters. Choose Mobile screen. Set the size if the library is offering a size, or take the card's default. Use this template.
The tab bar gains a document. The persona is Layout. The tool is Move, V. The status line confirms the frames are nested and editable. Click the header. Change the words. Select the outer frame and drag a handle if the phone size is wrong, and watch the stack and the pins respond. That response is the same system as a frame you drew with F. The starter only saved you the first twenty minutes of parenting.
Welcome → + Layout
File → Template library → Layout starters
Want Fieldwork without browsing? In an empty Layout inspector, Open Fieldwork starter. You get the responsive prototype at 1280 × 900. Dig into a component. The frames stay frames. Save As when the exploration becomes the job. Ctrl+Shift+S.
Want a blank phone in the current file, not a new document? Use the Phone button, 390 × 844. That inserts a frame. It does not load Mobile screen's header, hero, and action row. Use the starter when you want those children. Use the button when you want a rectangle with a name.
The vector 52 are still one click away on + Vector. Open one in another tab if the campaign needs a poster and a screen. Two .oma files, or one file if you later paste between them. The starters did not merge those catalogs.
The edge
A layout starter refuses to replace the tab you are in, and it refuses to pretend it is one of the 52 vector designs. You get a new unsaved document, in the Layout persona, built from frames. The 52 stay the vector bank. The five names above are the frame bank.
It also refuses to import someone else's tool. These are Omadesign frames. There is no Figma file reader hiding behind the card. If the structure is wrong for the job, you edit the frames, or you draw your own with F and Shift+A. The card is a start. The .oma you save is the file.
The thread
Part 58 of 144 in the Omadesign 0.5.8 feature thread.