Heratio Help Center article. Category: IIIF.
Saving Mirador workspaces
Audience: Researchers, archivists, anyone working in the Mirador 4 viewer Related: IIIF Viewer User Guide
What is a workspace?
A Mirador workspace captures everything you have on screen in the viewer at a given moment: every open canvas, where each window is positioned, the active layout (Mosaic / Elastic), zoom level, panel states, annotation panels. Heratio now persists that workspace so you can come back to it later instead of rebuilding the layout every time.
Two layers of persistence
Auto-save to your browser
Whenever you change anything in the viewer (open a window, drag a panel, zoom in), Heratio writes a snapshot of the workspace to your browser's local storage about 1.5 seconds after you stop. Reloading the page restores that snapshot automatically.
- No login required.
- Tied to the browser and device you are using.
- Cleared when you clear browser data.
Per-user saved workspaces
If you are logged in, you can save named workspaces to the server. They follow you across devices.
To save:
- Open the Workspace dropdown in the Mirador toolbar.
- Click Save current (overwrites the active saved workspace) or Save as new (creates a new named entry).
- Give it a name, e.g. "Letters from 1923 - working set".
To load:
- Open the Workspace dropdown.
- Click a saved name in the list.
- The viewer rebuilds itself from the saved state.
To make a workspace the default on next page load:
- Go to Manage workspaces at
/iiif/workspaces. - Find the row and click Set default.
- Next time you open a Mirador viewer, that workspace restores automatically.
Managing your workspaces
The admin page at /iiif/workspaces shows:
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Name | The label you gave the workspace |
| Default | A green badge marks the workspace that auto-loads on next open |
| Created / Updated | Timestamps |
| Actions | Rename, Set default, Delete |
Each user only sees their own workspaces; nothing is shared.
Limits and quirks
- The auto-save is per page, not per record. Two viewer pages on the same site keep separate local snapshots.
- Workspaces are stored as opaque JSON. If a future Mirador upgrade changes the state shape, old saved workspaces may fail to restore - in that case the auto-save takes over and you can save a fresh copy.
- Local storage is roughly 5 MB per origin; very large workspaces (hundreds of windows) may hit that ceiling. The server-side store has no practical size limit for normal use.
- Logging out keeps your local auto-save but the saved-workspace dropdown will be empty until you log back in.
Troubleshooting
- My workspace did not restore on reload. Check that the same browser is still attached - private / incognito tabs do not share local storage with normal tabs.
- I see the dropdown but no saved entries. Either you are not logged in, or you have not saved any yet. Pick Save as new to make the first one.
- I want to start fresh. Clear the auto-save with the browser console:
HeratioWorkspaces.clearLocal(), then reload.