Drawing Tools

The toolbar and picking tools

The toolbar sits top-center of the drawing editor. One tool is active at a time -- click its button or press its shortcut key: Select (W), Pan (S), Draw (A), Add Point (D), Measure (Q), Select Rack (E), Door (R), and Orbit (O, for the 3D view). Right below the toolbar there's a gray hint line that always describes what the active tool does, so if you're ever unsure, glance there.

A few behaviors that apply across every tool:

• Escape cancels whatever the current tool is doing and puts you back on the Select tool.
• Hold the middle mouse button to pan from ANY tool -- release and you're back on the tool you were using. Scroll to zoom at your cursor. The fit button (or zoom in/out buttons) reframes the view.
• Keyboard shortcuts pause while you're typing in a text field.
• If someone else has the drawing open (read-only mode), only Pan and Orbit work -- every editing tool is locked until the lock clears.

Select tool (W)

Select is your default tool for modifying anything already on the canvas. Click an item to select it -- a building or area polygon, a dimension line, a door, or (in an elevation view) a level. One item at a time; clicking empty canvas deselects. Hovering highlights whatever you're over.

Moving things:

• Drag a corner (vertex) or an edge directly -- no need to select first. Edges and corners snap to align with nearby geometry as you drag.
• To move a whole polygon, click it once to select, then drag it.
• Arrow keys nudge the selected polygon or door: 12 inches per press, 120 inches with Shift held, 1 inch with Ctrl held for fine positioning.

Other actions on a selected item:

• Ctrl+C duplicates it in place (polygons and doors). The copy appears immediately -- drag it where you want it.
• Delete removes it.

In an elevation view the Select tool works on levels instead: click a level to select and modify it, drag a level onto another level to swap their positions.

Pan tool (S) and moving around

Pan moves your viewport without touching the drawing: click and drag anywhere. In the 3D view, Pan slides the camera the same way.

You rarely need to switch to it, though -- from any tool, hold the middle mouse button to pan, and release to return to what you were doing. Scroll to zoom in and out at the cursor, and use the fit button to frame the whole drawing. Pan works even when a drawing is read-only.

Draw tool (A)

Draw creates new areas: rack areas, obstructions, and other zones. Click where you want one corner, drag, and release at the opposite corner -- you get a rectangle, with live width and length labels in feet-inches while you drag. Hold Shift to snap the dimensions to whole feet.

New areas start as rectangles named "Area" (you can rename in the area's menu, and change the default name in Settings). Need a non-rectangular shape? Draw the rectangle first, then use the Add Point tool to add corners and the Select tool to drag them -- that's the intended workflow for L-shapes and cutouts.

Add Point tool (D)

Add Point inserts new corners into an existing shape so you can reshape it. With the tool active, move your cursor near any edge -- a preview dot appears exactly on the edge at the nearest point. Click and the corner is added; then switch to Select (or press W) and drag the new corner or the new edge segments wherever you need.

On a straight horizontal or vertical wall, the tool actually inserts two stacked points at the click spot. That's deliberate: it means you can drag the resulting edge outward and the wall keeps its right angles instead of turning into a diagonal.

A couple of guardrails: you can't add points to a wall that has doors on it (move or remove the doors first), and auto-generated areas with locked shapes -- like a dock's staging area or an egress clearance zone -- refuse new points since their shape follows their doors.

Measure tool (Q)

Measure does double duty: it measures a distance AND leaves a real dimension line on the drawing. It takes three clicks:

1. Click the first point. The cursor snaps to useful targets as you approach them -- area corners, rack frame and beam corners, and building column corners -- with a circle marking the snap point.
2. Click the second point. The distance label appears and the dimension line is created. As you keep moving the mouse, the line offsets away from what you measured so it can sit clear of the geometry -- standard drafting practice.
3. Click a third time to lock the offset. You're switched back to the Select tool with the new dimension selected.

Hold Left/Right arrow while measuring to lock the measurement horizontal, Up/Down to lock it vertical. Escape mid-placement keeps the measurement but at zero offset. The whole gesture is one undo step, so Ctrl+Z removes the dimension cleanly.

Dimension lines are saved with the drawing and behave like anything else: select, drag to re-offset, or Delete. Dimensions snapped to rack corners re-attach intelligently when the layout regenerates. The measurement precision follows your dimension precision setting.

Dimension lines

Dimension lines come from the Measure tool (see the measure topic) and stick around as part of the drawing. Select one with the Select tool and its menu opens on the left:

• Color, Line Weight (four thicknesses), and Font Size (four sizes) style the line and its label.
• Precision controls how finely the label rounds. Each dimension carries its own precision, seeded from your default dimension precision setting.
• Anchor (horizontal and vertical dimensions only) pins the line onto the geometry it measures: an anchored dimension stays glued to its measured points as they move. An unanchored dimension still follows the geometry, but keeps the offset distance you placed it at. Diagonal dimensions have no axis to anchor along, so the button doesn't appear for them.
• Delete removes it (as does the Delete key).

Some dimensions the app draws for you: aisle widths and door positions are dimensioned automatically, and those regenerate every time the layout re-solves -- they keep their default styling and can't be customized, which is how they stay correct as the layout changes. Dimensions you snapped to rack corners re-attach to the same corner after the layout regenerates.

Select Rack tool (E) and per-bay overrides

Select Rack edits individual bays inside a generated rack layout -- the exception bays, without touching the rest of the row. In a plan view, click and drag a box; every bay completely inside the box gets selected (the selection locks to the first rack area you touch, so one drag edits one area). Release, and a Bay Options menu opens:

• Apply a different elevation to just those bays -- pick from the compatible elevations listed with their beam and frame colors. That's how you make a few bays taller, shorter, or configured differently than the row default. Tunnel bays are listed separately from standard bays when your selection has both.
• Clear Selected Bays puts overridden bays back on the row's default elevation.
• Remove Bay(s) deletes those bays from the layout entirely -- for carving out a corner the layout engine shouldn't fill.

Each menu action is a single undo step.

Orbit tool (O)

Orbit is the 3D view's camera tool: click and drag to rotate around your warehouse. It does nothing in the 2D plan and elevation views. In 3D you can also Pan (S, or hold middle mouse) to slide the camera, and scroll to zoom. Orbit and Pan both work when the drawing is read-only, so you can always look, even when you can't edit.

Door tool (R)

Press R to place a dock door, Shift+R for an egress door, or click the Door toolbar button to pick from the menu. Click a wall to place the door. (Full door mechanics are covered in the doors topic.)