Canvas basics

Every workspace opens on its canvas. This tutorial covers what you do on it most: put things on it, pick some of them, and gather them into a group.

1. Put something on the canvas

The quickest ways to add a block:

• Paste. A screenshot becomes an image block, a URL becomes a link with a preview, and plain text becomes a note.
• Drop. Drag files from your computer onto the canvas: images, PDFs, spreadsheets, anything. They upload into the workspace.
• The toolbar. Add a note, a link or a repository from the toolbar at the top of the canvas.

Blocks can be grabbed anywhere to move them and resized from their corners and edges.

2. Select

Try it in the demo below. It runs on sample data, so nothing you do is saved.

• Click a block to select it.
• Shift-click another to add it to the selection (and again to take it out).
• Drag across empty canvas to box-select everything inside.
• Esc clears the selection; ⌘/Ctrl+A selects everything.

The bar at the bottom centre says what is selected. It is also where you start a project from the selection with Create spec →; see your first project.

3. Group

Select two or more blocks and press Group in the selection bar, or ⌘/Ctrl+G. The blocks gather into one group block with a name. A group moves as one, opens to show what it holds, and goes to an agent as one piece of context. ⌘/Ctrl+Shift+G ungroups it again. More in groups and contexts.

4. Move around

• Press H for the hand and drag the canvas, or hold Space and drag in any mode. V goes back to selecting.
• Scroll to pan; ⌘/Ctrl + scroll or a pinch zooms.
• Enter opens the selected block: a note to write in, a group, a picture.

Every key is listed on the hotkeys page.

Next

• The canvas in full.
• Pointing an agent at blocks.