Drawing editor details: menus, templates, Generate and mouse actions
This page adds detail to The drawing editor: menus, panels and toolbar and Keyboard shortcuts in the drawing editor: the menu items those pages do not describe, the template categories, every choice in the Generate panel, more mouse actions and keys, and how the find, data, tags and scratchpad tools behave. The drawing editor is draw.io, set up by Antenor; the general behaviour below is draw.io’s own.
Menu items not described elsewhere
Section titled “Menu items not described elsewhere”| Menu | Items |
|---|---|
| View | Besides the items in The drawing editor: menus, panels and toolbar, the View menu has items for searching shapes, page scale, units, page tabs, a ruler, tooltips and animations. |
| Arrange | Besides the items in The drawing editor: menus, panels and toolbar, the Arrange menu has submenus for direction, navigation and layout. |
Zoom menu
Section titled “Zoom menu”The zoom menu (the zoom level on the toolbar) is described in The drawing editor: menus, panels and toolbar. It also has Two Pages, between Fit Page and Custom…, and the Fit Window item in it has the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+H.
Template dialog
Section titled “Template dialog”The Insert Template button in the left panel, below Scratchpad and above the Antenor shapes, opens the template dialog. It has a Search field at the top and these categories on the left; the number is how many templates the category holds. The categories other than Antenor and their numbers come from draw.io and can change when draw.io is updated:
| Category | Templates |
|---|---|
| Basic | 12 |
| Antenor | 3: Raci, Swimlane Horizontal, Swimlane Vertical |
| Business | 15 |
| Charts | 6 |
| Cloud | 41 |
| Engineering | 3 |
| Flowcharts | 9 |
| Maps | 5 |
| Network | 13 |
| Other | 12 |
| Software | 12 |
| Tables | 4 |
| UML | 8 |
| Venn | 8 |
| Wireframes | 5 |
Only the Antenor templates are made by Antenor; the others are draw.io’s own. Insert adds the chosen template to the drawing; Cancel closes the dialog. The Antenor templates are described in Make a process map with the Antenor templates and shapes.
Generate panel
Section titled “Generate panel”How to create a diagram with AI is in Create a diagram with AI. Generate needs the Admin level on the Super area row of your rights (see The Users page and the rights table) and your company’s AI assistant. The panel’s choices:
| Part | Choices and behaviour |
|---|---|
| Mode list under the text field | Six choices: Create Diagram (draw.io), which makes a diagram from your description; four choices that copy the diagram or the selection to the clipboard, update the diagram from the clipboard, or insert a diagram from the clipboard; and one that resets the panel. |
| Icons under your description | Delete the description, copy it, or edit it (the pencil). |
| Buttons under the result | Update, copy, open in a new window, preview, and Insert. Insert adds the result to the drawing as ordinary shapes. |
| When the request fails | The drawing editor tries again up to two more times before it shows an error. |
More mouse actions and keys
Section titled “More mouse actions and keys”These are draw.io actions that are not in Keyboard shortcuts in the drawing editor:
| What you do | How |
|---|---|
| Move around the drawing | Drag with the right or the middle mouse button, or scroll with two fingers on a touchpad. |
| Resize a shape and keep its centre in place | Hold Ctrl while you drag a round handle. |
| Attach a connector to any point inside a shape | Hold Shift while you drag the end of the connector over the shape. |
| Place a connected copy of a shape exactly where you want it | Ctrl+drag from one of the blue connection arrows and drop where the copy should go. |
| Switch between Reset View and Fit Window | Press Enter with nothing selected. Enter switches between the two; if the first press does not give the view you want, press Enter again. |
| Go to the next or previous match in Find/Replace | Enter for the next match, Shift+Enter for the previous one. |
Find, data, tags and scratchpad
Section titled “Find, data, tags and scratchpad”| Tool | How it behaves |
|---|---|
| Find/Replace (Edit menu, Ctrl+F) | Searches the text of shapes and connectors and their data (properties added with Edit Data…). It has an option for searching with regular expressions. |
| Edit Data… (Ctrl+M) | Adds properties with a name and a value to the selected shape. The names label, id and placeholders are reserved, and a name cannot contain a colon. A property named tooltip is shown when someone points at the shape. |
| Tags (View menu, Ctrl+K) | Tags are case-sensitive and cannot contain spaces. Tick a tag to give it to the selected shapes. Hiding shapes by tag changes only your own view: other people who open the diagram still see the hidden shapes. |
| Scratchpad (left panel) | Drag shapes from the drawing into it, or use the + in its heading. Clicking an item adds a copy to the drawing. Items can be renamed, reordered and deleted. |
| Layers (View menu, Ctrl+Shift+L) | Described in Tidy up a diagram: align, style, group and layers. |