Ede is a drawing editor for creating figures that is in active development. Information in the user guides may be outdated, and some features may not work as expected.
To draw a shape, first you have to make sure you have the desired shape selected. You can select a shape by either clicking on one of the dropdown options at the top of the canvas or by pressing the right tool shortcut.
You place the shape by clicking on the canvas.
Not all shapes get placed the same way. Some shapes need more clicks than others, for example for position and size or for start and end point.
For more information about each specific shape, see shapes.
Every type of shape has a list of propeties that the user can change to customize their shapes. For example, the color or the thickness of a line can be changed. Whenever a shape is selected, you can change the properties of that shape.
For more information about specific properties see "Properties".
When a shape is placed, the user will be able to see its controlpoints.
One of the main functionalities of the controlpoints is to interact with a shape, for example, to move or to resize it.
Each shape has its own set of controlpoints which will interact with the shape in their own way.
The other function of the controlpoints is to create dependencies. By snapping the shape to another shape while drawing, a dependency will be created, causing the shapes to influence each other. You can also create links/dependencies by dragging the controlpoints of already selected shapes and holding CTRL
There are 3 types of dependencies.
Controlpoint dependency is made by snapping to the controlpoint of an other shape while drawing. This will cause the two shapes to shape that controlpoint. Moving that controlpoint will thus affect both shapes.
Edge dependency is made by snapping to the edge of a shape. This will turn the controlpoint blue and make it dependent on the edge. When the edge moves, so does the controlpoint.
When manually moving the controlpoint it will only be able to move alongside the circumference of the shape it's snapped to.
Edge dependency is made by snapping to an intersection. This will turn the controlpoint purple and make it dependent on the intersection. When the intersection point changes, the controlpoint will move along.
When the two shapes that create the intersection move away from each other and stop overlapping, the intersection point disappears. When this happens, the dependent shape will become transparent until the intersection comes back.
It is not possible to manually move a controlpoint snapped to an intersection.
If you need to work on a project together with someone else, you can share the workspace with a collaborator using the share tab on the top of the editor. You can either invite some using their email, which will send them an invite automatically, or you can make a share link and send it to them manually. You can choose between giving your collaborators only view permissions or give them edit permision.
If you want to continue a drawing on a later point you can save the workspace either locally or on the cloud using the file tab at the top of the editor.
Wen you are done with drawing you migth want to download it as a displayable picture. Inside the export tab on the top of the screen you can find 2 options:
When exporting only the selected page will be exported, however when exporting as pdf there will be a page for each created view.
By default, only the boundingbox of the visible shapes within the canvas will be exported, however within the canvas settings it can be set to export the entire canvas.
Stylegroups are a way to group together multiple styles and apply them all at once, with the added bonus of being able to specify the style used for each type of property. After application, any changes made in the StyleGroup will also propagate to the shape. As of now, a shape can only be linked to one stylegroup at a time.
Example: Apply to shape
An example would be the map containing (fill color, 1), (stroke color, 2), (text color, 1). Applying this StyleGroup to a shape should do the following:
Above the canvas you can find buttons for zooming in and out of the canvas. You can also hold Ctrl while scrolling or use the = and - keys.
When you want to go back to a previous state, you can either go to the Edit tab and click on the 'undo' option or press Ctrl + z. You can also redo the undone actions instead by clicking redo in the same tab or by pressing Crtl + y.
If you want to adjust a shape you need to select it first. You can do this by first selecting the select tool and then either clicking on the shape or by click and dragging the mouse over the screen which will cause a box to appear. Every shape that is present within the box will be selected.
You can remove a shape from your canvas by selecting it and pressing either Backspace or Delete.
If you need multiple of one or more shapes you can copy all selected shapes by pressing Ctrl + c and place the copy using Ctrl + v. Alternatively of copying you can also cut a shape using Ctrl + x which will also remove the original shape.
Apart from these main features, EDE also offers a number of smaller quality of life features.
Almost all actions comes with a shortcut to facilitate a more efficient workflow. Within the interface, you can find the matching keybind within the text of the button or in a tooltip. Alternatively, you might want check out "Shortcuts".
There are a number of settings and toggles to adjust the drawing experience. To get the full list see "Settings".