Simple Graphics Editor

Polygon (either convex or concave) is the typical graphics object. One edge of the objects may be curved (arc or bezier). Each object has a handle that can be hidden and any number of nodes. The object can be moved by the mouse, dragging the handle. The nodes also can be dragged to resize the object. The shape of the object may change also in other ways by zooming, rotation, reflection. You can add new nodes to the objects or delete existing ones. Objects can form a group and the group can be moved or deleted simultaneously.
There is always a current object, that is indicated by a different handle, and its attributes are shown in the left side of the screen, under the "Select" drop-down list where all objects are listed.
To change the current object just click its handle or select it from the drop-down list.

Menu Commands

New Polygon	New Object	Transform	Tools	Colors	Group	Help
Line Triangle Square Octagon Hexagon Octagon Star	Text Arc Circle Bezier Bezier-Q Composite	Zoom In Zoom Out Rotate + Rotate - Reflection Duplication	Order + Order - Node + Node - Rename Delete Delete All	Aqua Lightgray Lime Tomato Orange Yellow White Black	Select Move Left Move Right Move Up Move Down Adjust Group Delete Group	Usage Demo 1 Demo 2 About

Other Commands

L e f t S i d e P a n e l

Group Select

Shortcuts for current object

Ctrl-I	Zoom In
Ctrl-O	Zoom Out
Ctrl-R	Rotate Clockwise
Ctrl-P	Counterclockwise
Ctrl-U	Order +
Ctrl-D	Order -
Ctrl-ARROW	Move Group

New Polygon

Creates a new regular polygon with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 nodes or a star with 14 nodes.

The number of nodes can be increased Node + or reduced Node -.

New Object

Text

Creates a new text object that must be renamed to the desired content. The text object can be treated in the same way as the shapes. It can be dragged, zoomed, rotated, duplicated, grouped too. Text object cannot be mirrored. The "Reflection" does nothing with text.

The handle is in its top left corner and by default it is not visible, but you can set it with Group / Select command.

Arc

Creates a semicircle but can be expanded with new nodes. The first two nodes can only be dragged along the arc.

Circle

Creates a circle. Among transformations only the zooming, moving and duplication can be applied to it.

Bezier

and

Bezier-Q

Creates a polygon with an edge of cubic or quadratic Bezier curve. The cubic curve (Bezier) has two control points, while the quadratic curve (Bezier-Q) has only one. The control points can be used to change its shape by dragging.

Composite

Creates a new object from several separate units. Existing objects that form a group will be the new composite entity. So you have to select the elements that make up the members (at least two) of the group and then issue this command. Composite object can be moved by dragging its handle and also all transformations (zoom, rotate, reflection, duplication) can be applied to it. (Because reflection is not implemented for text objects, if a text is part of a composite object, its mirroring will not be perfect.)
A composite unit can contain only simple objects, so it cannot a contain composite object, but those can be disassembled and put the whole together again.

Always check with Group / Select before you create a compositE object.

The Delete Group command can be used to disassemble the composite object.

Transform

Zoom In

and

Zoom Out

Transforms the current object.
Shortcuts are available as Ctrl-I and Ctrl-O

Rotate Clockwise

and

Counterclockwise

Rotates the current object. Each step rotates 15 degrees around the handle.
Shortcuts are available as Ctrl-R and Ctrl-P

Reflection

Reflects the current object along the vertical axis. The mirror image preserves all sizes.

Duplication

Creates a new object as an exact copy of the current object.

Tools

Order +

and

Order -

Changes the order of the current object.
The objects are displayed in the order in which they were created, so if they overlap each other the former should be seen partially only. The last object (with the highest order) is always fully visible.
Shortcuts are available as Ctrl-U and Ctrl-D

Node +

and

Node -

The number of nodes of the current object can be increased or decreased.
If the handle is visible one of the nodes of the current object is marked. This will be deleted or the new nodes will be added after this one (normally in clockwise direction). Only those polygon nodes that do not belong to a curve (Arc or Bezier) can be deleted.

Rename

Renames the current object.
The name of the object is used as identifier, and is displayed in the drop-down list at the top left corner.

Delete

and

Delete All

Deletes the current object, or deletes all objects.

A group of objects can be deleted by the Delete Group command.

Colors

Changes the color of the current object.

There is a secret command to specify custom colors. If you press Ctrl-Shift-H one color can be replaced with an arbitrary color code. The replacement can be repeated for other colors too. Write the number then the new color code. E.g. 1#99ff66 will replace the "Lightgray" color. The name will be retained, but another color will appear.

Group

Select

List of all available items appears on the left side of the screen to select the members of the group.

All other commands of the "Group" menu are applied to the selected subset.
In addition, the handle and area indication for each object can be individually set.

Move

Moves the selected group left, right, up or down. Shortcuts are available using Ctrl-ARROW.

The step size of the move is the size of the step.

Adjust Group

Aligns the coordinates of the nodes to the grid points of a virtual net. The distance between the grid points of the virtual net can be set by the "Grid size" drop-down list.

All objects (not only grouped) can be adjusted by Adjust nodes to grid.

Delete Group

The selected elementary objects will be deleted, but the composite ones will be disassembled only (so they can be deleted with a second call). When disassembling, the handle of each element will be visible, no matter how it was when composited.

List of available objects

The list of available objects appears after clicking Group / Select.

Here you can mark the members of the group by clicking on the appropriate checkbox. In addition, the handle and area indication can be individually set.

Global changes

The three green button at the top of the list will change all checkbox state in one of the columns:

Select all + to select all items

Clear all - to unselect all items

Invert all + - to change the state of the item to the opposite.

Column selector

The radio buttons select the column for the global changes: << Select column The first column refers to group membership, the second to appearing the handle, the third to the area indication.

In the case of a text or composite objects, the area indication cannot be selected.

Save

After finishing the selections, you can save the settings.

Cancel

Closes the selection list without saving any changes.

Help

Usage

Opens this users-guide.

Demo

Loads demo drawings.

About

Shows version number.

Left Side Panel

Select

At the top of the panel, a drop-down list always shows the name of the current object. Changing the selection of this drop-down list will change the current object. The order of the names also shows the displaying order of the objects.

Object Attributes

Below the "Select" drop-down list all attributes of the current item are displayed.

Name: The identifier of the object.
The name can be changed by Tools / Rename.
Type: The type of the object.
Order: The displaying order of the object.
It can be set by clicking Tools / Order + -.
Handle: The x and y coordinates of the handle.
Show: When displaying the object with handle and/or area indication, the words "Handle" or "Area" appear in the line.
It can be set for each object by clicking Group / Select.
Status: The "IN" and "OUT" indicates whether the object is a member of the selected group.
For "Arc" and "Circle" the radius is displayed.
For "Text" the font size and the rotation status is indicated.
For "Composite" the number of objects and their names are listed.
Nodes: The number of nodes. The numbering starts with zero. The next lines shows the coordinates of the nodes (if any).
Color: The color of the object can be changed by Colors.

Copy all to clipboard

Since for security reasons browsers cannot write data into the local file system, the only way to save your drawings is through the clipboard.
This command copies all objects to the system clipboard, from where you can paste it with Ctrl-V into your local editor (e.g. Notepad).

Create from clipboard

Opens a text-area on the left side of the screen to where you can paste (Ctrl-V) attributes of objects. The format must be exactly the same as it was copied out.

Grid size

This drop-down list sets the size of the virtual grid.

The Adjust nodes to grid or Adjust Group will adjust the nodes to the nearest grid point.

Step size

The Group / Move step size can be set with this drop-down list. The same step unit is applied when resizing the drawing board.

Drawing-board size

At startup, the size of the drawing-board is aligned with the size of the screen. Sometimes you need to make a larger drawing. You can resize the drawing board even if it doesn't fit on the screen.
The small "+" and "-" buttons resize the drawing-board. The width and the height.

Adjust nodes to grid

Aligns the coordinates of the nodes to the grid points of a virtual net. The distance between the grid points of the virtual net can be set by the "Grid size" drop-down list.

Subset of objects can be adjusted by Adjust Group.

Edge length

When clicking on one of the nodes of the object, the length of the next edge (normally in clockwise direction) is displayed as long as the mouse button is down.