The palette is the strip across the top of the canvas. It holds the canvas tools and every category of thing you can add to a diagram, so it is your main launchpad while you build.
The two dropdowns
The editor mode switch (Diagram, Draw, Illustrate, Plan or Facilitate; see Editor Modes) sits just left of the strip, beside the menu button (on a phone, switch mode from the tab menu's Mode instead). The strip itself starts with the selection mode, then the categories:
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On the left, the selection mode (what your pointer does), shown as a grid in three groups. Edit: Select (
V), Hand (H), Eraser (E) and the Format painter. Present: Laser (K), Spotlight, Avatar (W) and Slide Deck. Preview: Isometric (I) and Zen (Z). Spotlight and Slide Deck are desktop only, Plan mode leaves Eraser and Format out, and most of these stay greyed out until the canvas has something on it. See Selection Modes. -
Then the categories, by name. Rest the pointer on one, or click it, and its elements open in a panel underneath, in named groups; click one to add it or drag it onto the canvas. In Diagram mode they are Shapes, Draw (text, notes and comments, then the pens and arrows), Build (frames, lanes, mind maps and more), Concepts, Icons, Tech (full-colour technology marks) and Media, plus Library once you have imported a shape library.
Facilitate mode has Stickers and Data instead of Build, Concepts and Tech, and ends with Ask and Session, the interactive elements for workshops.
Search (the magnifier, or S) finds any element by name. Each mode has its own set: Illustrate mode adds the wireframing Components and Devices and the Data charts, and Plan mode keeps a category dropdown with its own categories, opening on Cards (or Boards, until the tab has a board), and More (⋯) for a category longer than the strip. An Event Storming board opens on its notation and has no Search. See where each one lives.
Adding elements
Pick a tile and it arms a tap-or-drag gesture: click the canvas to drop the element at its natural size, or drag on the canvas to size it as you place it. You can also drag a tile straight onto the canvas. An annotation is the exception: it drops at the centre of the visible canvas, ready to move.
If a boxed element is already selected when you click to drop another, the new one inherits its width and height, so you can chain similarly-sized nodes quickly. (A circle or diamond takes a square the size of the larger side, and a selected frame or lane never passes its size on.)
A tile with a keyboard shortcut shows its key in the corner on the strip; in the More and Search grids, hold ⌘ (Ctrl on Windows and Linux) to show them. See Keyboard Shortcuts.
More about the strip
The strip stays pinned to the top of the canvas on every device; on a phone its categories swipe sideways. It steps aside in Draw mode, where a dock takes its place, in Zen mode, and on a view-only link. See Toolbar Layout for the categories, Search and the order of the tiles, and Panel Layout for where everything else sits.
Looking for commands rather than elements? ⌘K opens search with its actions; see the Command Palette.
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