The basics of Liquid are very similar to most other editing programs.  The interface has a timeline, project window and source/destination windows just like Premiere.   All the buttons you can see on screen can be customised and moved.  The timeline is unique in that any track can have video or audio, and can be in any order. If you don’t need to see the audio then simply leave the audio and video as one clip and save windows space.  If you want to see the audio then a simple right click splits the audio and video into two lines. 
The program itself takes over the entire screen, even adding a new start bar with a dedicated Liquid start button. Transitions can be put between any clip on any track or between two titles etc.  There are a large range of transitions built-in and you can of course design your own.

New with version 5 is the fact that the standard windows start bar still remains on screen - in previous versions it would be obliterated completely.
 

 
There are no menus at the top of the screen in Liquid. Everything is done by right clicking with the mouse and a menu that relates to whatever is on the screen at that point will pop up. Initially this may be slightly annoying if you are used to Premiere because you have to right click in the right place to do what you want, however, pretty soon you begin to appreciate how tidy this makes the program.

Liquid works best when the editing is spread over 2 screens.  This gives you more room to spread out the different pallets.  With version 5 the best screen resolution at which to run Liquid is 1600 x 1200 - quite a high setting.  This is because the on screen video image is then a full PAL resolution image.  You have to be sure that your monitor supports this setting.  You normally have to use a large (19" plus) monitor to be able to display this resolution.  As CTR monitors, even 19" ones, are not too expensive this is not a problem, although you will find that 19" flat screens can be quite expensive.

At lower resolutions, although the picture looks good it is not a full video image.  However, if you are running at a lower resolution you can expand the timeline viewer as shown here to full size. Liquid then re-arranges the other windows to fit.   Therefore running at 1600 x 1200 is desirable but not essential.

If using the Liquid Pro AGP board - our recommend configuration if using a desktop machine since all the realtime effects can then be seen on a TV attached to the PC - you will need to add a second graphic card to your system to get dual monitor display.  This is our default syetem configuration.  

 USER INTERFACE

You can customise the interface and then save your customisations. A few customised interfaces are already included. For example you can start with a basic interface and by logging on as a different user, this can change to and interface with more options.