Avatar mode drops a small pixel character onto the canvas and lets you walk it around. Instead of waving a cursor at the part of the diagram you are describing, you walk over to it, so the room follows a character moving between places. Choose it from the mode picker at the top of the floating palette, or press W.
Walking
Click anywhere on the canvas and the character walks there, in a straight line, facing the way it is going. Click somewhere else while it is still walking and it turns and heads for the new spot instead.
The arrow keys steer it directly: hold one and the character walks that way for as long as you hold it, and holding two walks a diagonal. Release and it stops where it stands. On a touchscreen, tapping is the way to move it.
When the character ends up standing on an element, that element gets a soft ring around it, so your audience can see exactly which box you have arrived at. The canvas scrolls to follow the character when it gets close to the edge of the view, and the zoom is left alone.
Jump and wave a flag
Press Space and the character hops, waving a small flag on the way up and for a beat after it lands. It is there for the moment in a walkthrough when you want to say "this bit here" with a little more emphasis than a ring around a box, and it works well for a round of applause at the end of a review.
One press is one hop: holding the key down will not pogo, and pressing again mid-air does nothing until the character is back on the ground.
Make the character yours
Whenever Avatar mode is on, an Avatar panel appears — a character sheet with a portrait of your character and four choices, each one a row you expand:
- Gender — male or female.
- Clothing — sixteen outfits: T-shirt, stripes, jumper, hoodie, vest, suit, dress, skirt, polo, flannel, overalls, lab coat, Hawaiian, varsity, turtleneck, or apron.
- Hair — fourteen styles: short, buzz, curly, long, ponytail, bun, mohawk, bald, pigtails, afro, spiky, bob, braid, or top knot.
- Size — small, regular, or tall.
Each row shows what it is currently set to, so a collapsed panel still reads as a summary of your character; open one and the options appear. Pick anything and the character on the canvas changes as you go. In the corner of the portrait is a randomise button — one click for a whole new character, keeping the size you chose.
The first time you use the mode you get a random character — a random gender, outfit, and hairstyle, at the regular size — so you are not the same figure as everyone else by default. From then on it is yours: your choices are remembered in this browser, so the character you build is the one waiting the next time you enter the mode, in this diagram or any other.
The panel drags and docks like every other panel, and on a phone (or with the minimal panel layout switched on) it opens from the Avatar button in the dock at the top-right.
Right-clicking the character on the canvas is a shortcut for switching gender without opening the panel. Right-clicking anywhere else does nothing while you are in this mode (the usual context menus stay shut so a menu cannot interrupt a walkthrough).
There is no colour choice, on purpose: the character's shirt takes your participant colour — the same colour as your cursor and your name in the tab bar — so on a shared diagram it is always obvious which character is yours.
Reactions
Under the customisation rows are five reactions your character can perform on the spot, one click each:
- Jumping jacks — five of them.
- Wave — a raised hand, waving.
- Spin — two turns on the spot.
- Cheer — arms up, bouncing.
- Dance — a side-to-side sway.
They are quick on purpose — a gesture, not a cutscene — and everyone else on a shared diagram sees the performance too. Starting one stops whatever walk was in progress, so the character performs where it stands.
The diagram is read-only while you walk
Every click means "walk over there", so nothing on the canvas can be selected, moved, resized, or edited while Avatar mode is on, and the element shortcuts stay dormant. That is deliberate: you can click around your diagram freely mid-presentation without any chance of nudging a shape out of place.
Reaching for the palette lets you edit again. Pick any palette tile — or drag one onto the canvas — and Avatar mode steps aside, back to whichever mode you were in before, and the element drops as normal. You do not have to leave the mode by hand first.
Press Esc (or pick another mode) to put the character away. Panning still works the usual ways while walking: middle-mouse drag, a two-finger trackpad scroll, or the zoom controls.
Availability
Avatar mode is disabled on an empty canvas — add something to walk to first. It is available on desktop and touch, and to view-only visitors, since it changes nothing.
Everyone on a shared diagram can walk around at the same time, and you can see each other's characters. See Walking Together.
To invite people in without explaining where the mode picker is, drop a Selection Mode button on the canvas (palette → Behaviour). It reads "Switch to Avatar", so one click puts a visitor in the mode — and the character appears right at the button they pressed. Pressing it again while in the mode hands them back the tool they were using. See Tools.
Portals work here too: walk your character into a Portal and you come out of the one it is linked to, even on another tab.
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