The Canvas

The canvas is the drawing area. It uses a square grid; everything you place snaps to the grid so pins and wires line up exactly.

The grid

Fig. 30 The grid: fine snap cells with a heavier line every eight cells.

Grid and snapping

  • The snap step is the fine grid spacing — every component, pin and wire vertex lands on it.

  • A major grid line is drawn every eight fine cells to help you judge distances.

  • Grid colours can be changed under File ‣ Preferences (see Preferences).

Selecting items

  • Click an item to select it.

  • Rubber-band select by dragging on empty canvas. Dragging left-to-right selects items fully enclosed; dragging right-to-left selects anything the box touches (KiCad-style).

  • A selected component shows a blue outline; a selected wire shows square handles at its vertices.

Moving items

  • Drag a selected item to move it. Components and wires keep their existing connections while you move them (see Wiring).

  • Movement is snapped to the grid.

Zoom and pan

  • View ‣ Fit (F) frames the whole drawing.

  • + / - zoom in and out; Ctrl+0 resets the zoom.

  • Use the scroll bars or the mouse wheel to pan.

Undo and redo

Every edit can be reversed with Edit ‣ Undo (Ctrl+Z) and re-applied with Edit ‣ Redo (Ctrl+Y).