Shapes hold the ideas in your diagram. The palette's Shapes category covers the everyday set of thirteen, so there is a node for flowcharts, data stores, decisions and notes alike:
- The basics: Square, Circle and Diamond.
- The flowchart shapes: Cylinder, Parallelogram, Hexagon, Document and Stadium.
- The rest: Cloud, Triangle, Trapezoid, Star and Bubble (a speech bubble).
Adding a shape
Rest on Shapes, first on the palette strip, or click it, then click a shape in its panel. The canvas is now ready to place it:
- Tap the canvas to drop the shape there, at the size of whatever you had selected when you picked the tile, so a row of shapes stays consistent.
- Drag to draw it at exactly the size you want. Hold Shift while you drag for a perfect square or circle.
- Press Escape to cancel instead.
You can also drag a tile straight from the palette onto the canvas. Five shapes have a single-key shortcut that arms the same placement without opening the palette: R for a square, O a circle, D a diamond, C a cylinder and G a parallelogram.
Once placed, a shape behaves like any other element: move, resize, recolour, rotate and theme it as usual.
Morphing between kinds
Changed your mind? Right-click a shape and open its Shape section to turn it into another kind in place, keeping its size, colours and text. The grid offers the eight common kinds: Square, Circle, Diamond, Stadium, Parallelogram, Hexagon, Triangle and Cylinder. Hover a tile to preview the result on the canvas; click to keep it.
Select several shapes first and the same section morphs them all at once. Charts, meters, code blocks and other elements that draw their own content don't morph, and neither do icons or frames.
Styling and text
Double-click a shape (or select it and press Space) to type its label, or just start typing to replace the label. The right-click menu's Style row holds one-click Style Presets along with the Colours and Border controls, and its Text row holds the font, size, padding and alignment of the label. See Text and Fonts for the text controls.
Status markers
A shape with a label can show a small status symbol right beside its text: a red, orange or green dot, or a to-do checkbox. It flags status without adding a separate element.
Shape Markers
Show a traffic-light dot or a checkbox inside a shape to flag status at a glance.
Style Presets
Restyle a shape or arrow in one click with looks that follow the tab's theme.
Reach for Arrows to connect your shapes into a flow once they are on the canvas, or use a shape's quick-add + buttons to add a connected shape beside it.
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