You've likely noticed the Editor feels more responsive lately. Over the past few weeks, we've been progressively rolling out a complete rework of Flat's score display engine.
By releasing this update gradually, we were able to monitor real-time performance and refine the code based on your feedback. The result is a brand-new foundation that makes the Editor quicker to load and smoother to use, even on lower-powered devices.
🚀 Why We Rebuilt the Engine from the Ground Up
Our tech team went deep — rebuilding the entire rendering engine at the heart of Flat's Editor. We revisited almost 10 years of work, restructured our architecture, and tested multiple rendering strategies to deliver the fastest, smoothest, and most responsive version of Flat yet.
⚙️ How the New Score Display Works
A new architecture that separates formatting from painting
With the new system, we've split the logic into two parts: one part figures out what goes on each page (formatting), and the other part paints only what's visible. That means if you jump to page 100, Flat can calculate the layout without redrawing all 99 previous pages — much faster, especially for large ensemble scores.
Starting the display as soon as possible
The Editor now pauses other tasks just long enough to display your update immediately — so you see the result of your action as fast as possible.
📄 Bonus: PDF Export Is Faster Than Ever
Thanks to the new architecture, we can now skip the SVG intermediate step and directly produce PDF from the score data itself — faster, more reliable exports.
🚀 What's Next
We're also experimenting with WebGL rendering (the same technology as Figma), rebuilding the toolbar for a cleaner workspace, adding 16th-note tuplet support, and refining a tempo playback logic.
💬 Tell Us What You Think
Have feedback? Let us know at 👉 hello@flat.io
Thanks for growing with us.