1.4.8. Window Transparency
The figure builder window can be made transparent or semi-transparent. This is often useful when building new figures that need to integrate with figures already in the editing canvas. For example, it's useful when creating multi-figure backgrounds.
It can also be used to create accurate figures by tracing over images opened in an image viewer or web browser. Segment colours can be matched while tracing by using the colour picker tool in the colour selector window
.
The
< and
> keyboard keys can be used to adjust the level of window transparency.
Ctrl+T can be used to quickly turn transparency on or off.
Note: On QWERTY keyboards the <> keys are on the comma and full stop keys. On other keyboards they made not be. If the <> keys don't work then try comma (,) and full stop (.) instead.
Figure builder transparency. Designing a tree figure by tracing over an image found online
Window Controls
Note that the title bar of the window will disappear when transparent, but the window can still be moved by dragging the area to the right of the menu. The window can be resized by dragging the bottom right hand corner of the window to the right of the zoom percentage. It can also be maximised or restored by double clicking the area to the right of the menu.
Match Canvas Pan/Zoom
When building complex objects, it is often useful to build larger objects from several smaller ones and then join them on the main canvas using the
Join tool. This allows parts of objects to be separated if needed and the draw order (z-order) to be changed relative to each other. The
Match Canvas Pan/Zoom option in the View menu makes it easier to align new figure parts with objects already in the main canvas when the window is in transparent mode. When selected, the
pan and zoom changes made in the figure builder window while working on a figure will be matched in the main window canvas. The two canvases will stay aligned even when moving or resizing the whole figure builder window. If you'd like to change the alignment of objects then simply move the figure in the figure builder window by dragging the orange origin handle.
The canvas matching option can be disabled by clicking the option again or by using the F8 keyboard shortcut.
Note that the canvases may not stay aligned when zoomed out a long way. This happens because the canvases reach the limit that they can pan to. Rest assured that the alignment will return to exactly its previous state as soon as you zoom back it.
The main canvas pan and zoom will return to its previous state when the canvas matching option is disabled, the window transparency is disabled, the figure builder window is closed or if the figure builder window is moved such that the canvases no longer overlap.
