The editor lays its tools out the same way on every device, a computer, a tablet or a phone: the palette is one strip across the top of the canvas, and the Explorer opens from a menu button in the top-left corner.
What it does
The palette is a single strip pinned to the top centre of the canvas. From left to right it holds:
- Selection mode: Select, Hand, Eraser, Laser and the rest.
- Category: which set of tiles the strip shows, such as Popular, Shapes or Icons.
- Up to twelve tiles from that category (fewer on a narrow window). Click one to add it, or drag it onto the canvas. Each tile shows its keyboard shortcut in the corner.
- More (the ⋯ button), when the category has more than the strip can hold.
- Search (the magnifier, or press S), last on the strip, to find any element, icon or sticker by name.
In the top-left corner, in a card of their own, sit the menu button and the editor mode switch (Diagram, Draw, Illustrate or Plan; Shift+D moves to the next mode). The menu button opens the Explorer as a popover under it, and clicking it again closes it.
Layers and Collaborate open just above their buttons in the bottom row, and close when you click the button again. Every other panel (the AI assistant, the Map, polls, votes and the tool panels) docks in a corner of the canvas, and you can drag it to another (see Panel Layout). Undo and Redo stay in the bottom-right corner.
Only one of the strip's menus is open at a time: opening the selection mode, category, More or Search closes whichever other was open, and a click anywhere outside closes it.
More
More opens the whole category under the button: its search box, its groups and every tile. Adding a tile from it closes it again, so the canvas is clear to draw on, and switching category closes it too. Icons, Stickers, Tech and Collaborate always have a More, since their search and groups only live there.
Search
Search finds an element without knowing which category holds it. Before you type, it shows the kinds of element already on your tab, so the ones you are using are one click away. Type a name, or a word you would use for it ("database" finds the cylinder, a database icon and the database brands), and the tiles your current editor mode offers appear first, then matching icons, stickers and technology marks. The × at the end of the box clears it. Click one to add it, or press Enter to add the best match.
Each editor mode keeps its palette to the tools that suit it, so a Diagram has no charts and an Illustrate page has no pens. Search still finds those: they wait below, under Not in Diagram Mode (or whichever mode you are in), closed until you open it. Every element works in every mode. That includes Draw mode's Marker 1, 2 and 3, in the colours and widths you gave them there: pick one and draw, and press Escape to put it down.
Search is not on an Event Storming board, where the notation is the palette, and Draw mode shows its own dock instead of the strip. Wherever the strip's Search isn't shown, S keeps its old meaning and picks the Select tool.
The order of the tiles
Each category keeps its own order on the strip: adding something never moves it. Thin dividers split a category into groups of related tiles, such as the desktop and the mobile devices, or the charts and the meters. The strip opens on the mode's Popular each time a document loads.
What else the strip shows
- Plan mode adds an Edit Cards button to the strip, and Illustrate an Add Page button (a +).
- On an Event Storming board the strip shows the notation's tiles instead of the two pickers, led by Add from Photo where it is available.
- Viewers who can't edit have no strip, since there is nothing to add; the menu button still shows.
- Zen mode hides the strip and the menu button with the rest of the editor's chrome.
On a phone
On a phone the strip is narrower:
- The menu button sits in a card of its own at the left of the strip, without the mode switch: to change editor mode on a phone, open the tab menu (the … on the tab) and choose a mode from its mode rows.
- The category shows its icon only, which leaves room for more tiles. Swipe the tiles sideways to see the rest of the category; More opens across the width of the screen.
- Layers and Collaborate open above their buttons in the bottom row, as on a computer. Pinch to zoom; the Fit button is there too.
A phone held sideways counts as a phone too.
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