Layers and the Properties panel#

At a glance#

• Layers — every page has a layer stack with per-layer opacity, visibility, lock, rename, and reordering (Ctrl + L opens the panel), managed like a common vector editor: every new element gets its own layer, Shift-click multi-selects rows, canvas selection and panel selection highlight each other, group rows expand/collapse, rows drag-and-drop to reposition or to nest inside a group, and deleting an element deletes its emptied layer (deleting a layer deletes its elements). Renaming a layer is F2 or a double-click on its row, and the name arrives highlighted so a new one can be typed straight over it. Drawing and selection respect the active layer; the Eraser cuts the selected marks, or every mark it touches, wherever they are, and adds no layer. The panel is in view by default, resizable (drag its inner edge), and offers a right-click menu with the menu bar's Layers rows (Add Layer, Group Layer, Ungroup, Rename, Delete Layer, a Move submenu of Layer Up, Layer Down, Layer to Top and Layer to Bottom, a Select submenu of Layer Above and Layer Below, a Clipping Mask submenu of Make and Release, a Blend submenu of the blend modes, Hide Layers Panel) and the clipboard rows between them.
• Layer groups — Ctrl+G groups the active layer (nesting allowed); group visibility, lock, and opacity apply to every layer inside, and Ctrl+Shift+G ungroups.
• Clipping masks — Ctrl+7 groups the selection into a Clip Group that shows only inside the closed path on top, which paints nothing while it clips; Ctrl+Alt+7 releases it.
• Blend modes - the Blend select under Opacity, or Layers > Blend, sets how the selected layers mix with what is under them, the paper included: a vector editor's sixteen blend modes under napkin names, such as Stack Blend for Multiply. Shift+Plus and Shift+- step through them.
• Layer restacking moves the whole selection. The panel's move buttons (and Ctrl+] / Ctrl+[) shift every selected row one step, not just the active one; the selection keeps its own order, unselected rows keep theirs, and a row that has reached the end of the stack holds the ones behind it rather than letting them pile through. A selected group travels as a block, carrying everything nested inside it, and a layer only moves among its own siblings, so it never leaks out of the group it lives in. Ctrl+Shift+] and Ctrl+Shift+[ take the selection to the top or the bottom of its group in one step, and Alt+] and Alt+[ make the row above or below the active one the selection, as the panel shows its rows; these four answer to the Layers panel, and ask for it when it is hidden.
• Properties panel (Ctrl + P) - element-level editing for whatever is selected on the canvas or highlighted in the Layers panel: Position (X / Y in px, in, mm, or pt), Appearance (fill color, no fill, or a gradient with a draggable stop ramp; stroke width, dash style, or no stroke at all), and Scale (X / Y as a % factor or an exact px/in/mm/pt size, uniform by default). Because selecting a layer row selects its elements, it doubles as the layer's own property sheet.

The Layers panel#

Layers panel: every new drawn element gets its own layer named after the tool (an empty active layer is reused). The Eraser adds no layer and no mark: it cuts the marks themselves (Eraser). Click a row to make it active and highlight its elements on the canvas; Shift-click to multi-select rows; drag a row to reposition it in the stack, or drop it onto a group row to nest it inside. Rename the active layer with F2, or double-click any row (the right-click menu's Rename does the same) - the row's name turns into a text box with the current name already highlighted, so typing replaces it; Enter or clicking away commits, Esc cancels. F2 opens the panel if it is hidden and unfolds any group the layer is buried in. Deleting an element deletes its layer once the layer is empty, and the Delete button - or the Delete key while no element is selected - removes every selected layer together with its elements.

Layer groups#

Layer groups: Ctrl+G (or the Group button in the Layers panel) groups the selected layers (or the active layer) into one group; press it again on a group to nest. Starting to draw while a group row is selected adds a fresh layer inside that group and puts the stroke there (a toast names the layer), since a group holds no marks of its own. A group's visibility, lock, and opacity apply to every layer inside it, the panel indents grouped layers under a collapsible header (click the caret to expand/collapse), and Ctrl+Shift+G dissolves the active group while keeping its layers. Deleting a group deletes the layers inside it.

Clipping masks#

Clipping masks: select what to clip and, on top of it, the closed path to clip it with, then choose Layers > Clipping Mask > Make (Ctrl+7). The layers the selection is on go into a new group, a Clip Group, and everything in it shows only inside the topmost path, its clipping path, which paints nothing while it clips. The clipping path's layer moves to the top of the group. In the Layers panel the group's row carries a ◘ and the clipping path's row a clip badge, its name underlined in dots.

• What is hidden cannot be picked. A click outside the clipping path picks nothing in the group, a click inside it picks what shows there, and a selection box takes a mark only where it shows. Direct Select (A) still reaches every mark, the clipping path included, so its anchors can be edited where they are.
• The dashed boxes box what shows: a selected mark's box is cut to the clipping path's bounds.
• Release (Ctrl+Alt+7) takes the clip off the clip group around the selection, or around the selected or active layer. The group stays a group and the clipping path paints again; Ctrl+Shift+G then ungroups it. Make and Release are one undo step each.
• One mark selected, or an open path on top, does nothing, and a notice says why.
• A clip group can hold another: the inner one shows only where both clipping paths overlap.
• Effects come after the clip, so a clip group's drop shadow falls under what shows, not under the whole of what it holds.
• Every export keeps it: the SVG clips the group with a <clipPath>, the PDF with a clipping path, the Illustrator script with a clipped group (Import and export). A script makes one with clip { ... } (Drawing with napkin script).

Blend modes#

New in 1.0.0-alpha.5.0.0.

Napkin Blends: a layer's blend decides how what it paints mixes with what is under it - the layers below it and the paper. Set it for the selected layer rows, or the active layer, with the Blend select under Opacity at the foot of the Layers panel or with Layers > Blend, or step through the list with Shift+Plus and Shift+-. A blended layer's row carries a mark of two circles, with the mode's name in its tooltip.

The sixteen modes are a vector editor's, in its order, under napkin names, with the vector editor's name beside each:

• The paper takes part. A Stack Blend over the paper darkens into it, grain and all, as ink soaks into a napkin; a layer at Normal covers the paper as it always did. An export with no paper - a transparent export of a selection - has no paper to mix with, so a blend there mixes only with the layers under it.
• A group with a blend paints what it holds as one picture and blends that. Isolate Blending (Layers > Blend, on a group) keeps the blends inside a group from reaching past it: they mix only with each other. A group with an opacity below 100% that holds a blended layer is isolated as well, as SVG and PDF composite such a group.
• Each change is one undo step, for every selected layer at once.
• Every export keeps it: the SVG as mix-blend-mode with the napkin name in data-blend, the PDF as a transparency group with /BM, the Illustrator script as each layer's blendingMode, and a PNG made without the app by the same math - the W3C's, which vector editors, photo editors, CSS and PDF share. An SVG from another editor brings its mix-blend-mode, written inline or in a <style> rule, and its isolation in with it. A script sets one with blend (Drawing with napkin script).

The Properties panel#

Properties panel (Ctrl+P): edits the current selection, element by element. Selecting a layer row selects that layer's elements, so the panel is also where a whole layer's stroke width is changed. Ctrl/Cmd-click picks rows out one at a time (clicking a selected row again takes it back out) and Shift-click takes every row between the last one selected and this one — the two modifiers every layer panel uses, and the one place they differ. A Shift range covers the rows the panel is showing: rows folded away inside a collapsed group are not swept up with them.

• Position - the X and Y of the selection's top-left corner. Each axis has its own unit: px (default), in, mm, or pt. Typing a value moves the selection there; it never resizes anything.
• Appearance / Fill - a color well recolors the fill (for a text item, its ink), No fill clears it, and Gradient opens the ramp editor: drag a handle to move a stop, double-click a stop to recolor it in the color picker, double-click the empty ramp to add a stop where you clicked, + and − add and remove stops (two is the minimum), and the type picker switches between Linear (with an angle slider) and Radial. The flat fill is kept underneath, so Remove brings it back.
• Appearance / Stroke - width in pixels, a Solid / Dashed / Dotted style whose dash pattern scales with the width, and No stroke for a fill-only shape (the color and width are kept, so the button turns back into Add stroke).
• Appearance / Opacity - the opacity and the blend of the selection's layers, as the Layers panel sets them; an fx button that drops the Effect menu's rows down, to add an effect; and how many effects the selection has, which opens the Appearance panel (see Effects and the Appearance panel).
• Scale - with the default % unit each field is a factor to apply (150 enlarges by half); with px, in, mm, or pt it is the size the selection should end up. Uniform scaling (on by default) applies one factor to both axes; unchecked, each field scales its own axis. Scaling is anchored at the selection's top-left corner, so the Position values above stay put, and line weight scales with the shape.