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Shape Tools |
Shapes such as lines, rectangles and circles are created using the shape tools. By default the shape toolbar appears alongside the right-hand edge of the Designer window, but you can drag it to wherever you prefer. There are a number of tools here for your use, and each one makes the window editing workspace act differently when active.
Shape tools allow you to create various shapes as well as edit them after they are created. Click on the tool's icon to make it the active tool. You can also double-click on a shape to change to that shape's native tool. When a shape tool is active, a toolbar will appear that has specific actions and settings for that tool.
After a shape is created, you can change its fill color, stroke color, and stroke style. See Fill and Stroke for more. All shapes can be treated as paths and be used with composite geometry functions to alter or create other shapes. See Geometry and Paths for more.
Selection Tool Normally the selection tool (
Rectangle Tool The rectangle tool (
There are also small circle handles that allow you to alter the rectangle's corner rounding radius. Simply drag the circle down the side of the selected rectangle to make it a rounded rectangle. Hold down control to drag each rounding handle independently if you want non-symmetric corner rounding. You can use the Make Straight button in the rectangle tool's toolbar (
Ellipse Tool The ellipse tool (
Polygon / Star Tool The polygon tool (
Arrow Tool The arrow tool (
Pencil Tool The pencil tool (
On the pencil tool's toolbar, there are options for simplification and smoothing, as well as a toggle between creating straight line segments or curved line segments. The simplification parameter is a size in pixels that will be used to decrease the number of points used when creating the line. Points will be in general as far apart as this setting. If you find the line isn't accurate enough, decrease this setting. If you choose to create curved segments, then the segments between points will be Bézier curves instead of straight lines. The smoothing function controls how curvy these segments are allowed to get.
Line Tool The line tool (
As you draw the line, "locked-in" sections are drawn in green and the next segment is drawn in red. Hold down ctrl at any time to snap the next segment to 15° increments.
On the line tool's toolbar, you can choose between three modes: normal line mode, perpendicular mode, and curve mode. Perpendicular mode is just like line mode except that each segment is restricted to either horizontal or vertical. Curve mode will create a Bézier curve path by attempting to draw a smooth curve between the previous two vertices and the new vertex.
Path Tool All shapes and paths can be edited directly by using the path tool. This tool lets you directly modify the nodes in the path, adding new nodes, removing nodes, and toggling segments between straight or curved. Learn more about paths in the Geometry and Paths section.
Gradient Tool The gradient tool is used to affect the orientation and extent of any gradient paints. Learn more about gradients in the Fill and Stroke section.
Eyedropper Tool The eyedropper tool is used to set the selected shape(s) and/or component(s) foreground/background or stroke/fill colors by pulling the colors from somewhere else in the window. When this tool is active, left-click to set the selection's fill or background, and right-click to set the selection's stroke or foreground. Note that this tool works on most components as well as shapes. For example, right-clicking will set the font color on a Button, or left-clicking will set the background color. |