Inspector Panel

The Inspector Panel is your control center for viewing and changing properties. It sits on the right side of the window; toggle it with the Inspector button in the toolbar.

The Inspector is organized in four tabs. Sections appear only when they apply to the current selection.

The Inspector opens on the Document tab when nothing is selected and switches to Style when you select something.

Style Tab

Element

Appears when a placed reusable element is selected. Shows the element's name and one row per text slot — click a row to edit that slot.

Element Color Components

Appears for notation symbols and images.

• Color Scheme Grid: Swatches for the colour schemes of the selected notation. Click one to recolour the symbol instantly
• Custom Color: A colour well for your own colour — for SVG images this sets the artwork's tint
• Opacity: Overall transparency of the item (0%–100%)

When a custom style is active, a grid of the style's variants is also shown here.

Mindmap

Appears when a mind-map node is selected. Controls include the map's Structure and Theme (Default, Vibrant, Muted, Dark), Branches style (Smooth, Straight, Elbow), Node Shape, Icon, Add Frame / Remove Frame, Add Summary / Remove Summary, and Reset Node to Theme. See Mind Maps.

Style

Appears for vector shapes (rectangles, circles, paths, freehand drawings, results of Combine…). It shows the shape's rendering stack — a list of renderers, each of which can be turned on or off.

Add renderers from the menus:

Stroke

• Color and Width (slider with ticks at 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 points)
• Dash Pattern: Solid Line, Dotted, Dashed, Dash-Dot, Dash-Dot-Dot, Long Dash
• Cap Style: Butt, Round, or Square
• Join Style: Miter, Round, or Bevel

Colour Fill

Choose the fill type:

• Solid — a single colour
• Gradient — a smooth transition between colour stops; drag stops on the gradient bar and set the direction with the Angle dial
• Pattern — a repeating image: Paste Pattern Image or Image from File...

A fill can also have:

• Shadow — a drop shadow with an Angle dial, Distance and Blur sliders, and a shadow colour
• Inner Shadow — see Shadows & Effects

Opacity

Overall transparency of the whole shape, applied after all renderers.

Connector

Appears when regular connectors are selected.

• Start Arrowhead / End Arrowhead: Open the arrowhead picker — Built-in Arrowheads (Arrow, Circle, White Triangle, 1/2/3 Feather, Diamond, White Diamond, Box, Circle Stroked, Arc, Stick, Double Stick, Crows Feet, Inheritance, Cross, and more) plus Notation Arrowheads from the active notation pack. See the Arrowheads Reference
• Colors: Shaft colour and separate start and end arrowhead colours, with Apply Color To Both Arrows and Shaft
• Line Type: Solid Line, Dotted, Dashed, Dash-Dot, Dash-Dot-Dot, Long Dash
• Width: Line thickness
• Start / End Arrow Length: Arrowhead sizes, with Apply Length To Both Arrows
• Shaft: The routing mode — Straight, Polyline, Orthogonal, Smooth, Smart Orthogonal, or Smart Polyline
• Corner Radius: Rounds the corners of bent connectors (0–60)

Saving and applying default connector styles is done from the connector's floating style toolbar.

Text Tab

Text

Appears when a symbol, shape, or table is selected.

• Text Presets
• Font name and Font size (presets 8–96)
• Font typeface: Bold, Italic, Underline
• Text color
• Text align: Left, Center, or Right
• Autosize: The shape grows to fit its text
• Fixed width: The shape keeps its width and text wraps inside it
• Padding: Mode (Relative or Absolute), Left, right and Top, bottom sliders, and Show paddings to preview them on the canvas

Connector Text Position

Appears for regular connectors and controls the connector's main label:

• Layout Mode: Horizontal, Along Path, or Along Reversed Path
• Position: Where along the connector the text sits, from start to end
• Offset: Distance from the line, from Lower to Above

Labels

Additional connector labels. Click Add Label to add one; each label row has its text, an anchor (Position %, From Start, or From End), a layout, an Above offset, and a delete button. See Connectors.

Arrange Tab

Geometry

Appears for symbols, shapes, tables, groups, and images, and shows endpoint coordinates for connectors.

• X / Y: Position on the canvas (points)
• W / H: Width and height
• Rotation: Angle in degrees
• Apply: Confirm changes typed into the fields

You can also move items by dragging, resize with the handles, and rotate shapes, paths, and images with the rotation handle.

Table

Appears when a table is selected and shows its row, column, and cell counts. Grid and cell formatting is done from the table's floating toolbar (double-click the table): Grid Settings (Show Grid, Show Table Frame, Grid Line Width, Corner Radius, Grid Color) and Cell Attributes (font, text alignment and colour, text angle, padding, background, and Apply to all table cells). See Tables.

UML

Appears when UML elements are selected on UML pages.

• Class: Class name, stereotype, Abstract, attributes, and operations (Cmd+L adds an attribute, Shift+Cmd+L an operation)
• Relationship: Type — Association, Dependency, Inheritance, Realization, Aggregation, or Composition — plus label and multiplicities
• Participant: Name and role — Participant, Actor, Boundary, Control, Entity, or Database
• Message: Type — Synchronous, Asynchronous, Return, Create, Destroy, or Self Call — and label
• Fragment: Operator — alt, opt, loop, break, par, critical, neg, assert, ignore, consider, or ref — and guard condition

See UML Class Diagrams and UML Sequence Diagrams.

Layout

Available on all pages except ASCII pages. Choose a layout algorithm, adjust its parameters, and click Layout. Force-directed and Organic layouts add a Live switch. Connect selected shapes links the selected shapes with connectors. See Auto-Layout.

Document Tab

Layers

The page's artboards, a Guides row, and all layers with their items. Show, hide, lock, rename, and reorder layers and items. See Layers.

Smart Connectors

Settings for smart-routed connectors on the current page:

• Shape Buffer Distance: Clearance between connectors and shapes
• Segment Penalty: How strongly extra segments are avoided
• Crossing Penalty: How strongly connector crossings are avoided
• Port Direction Penalty: How strictly connectors leave shapes at right angles
• Nudging Distance and Auto Pin Offset Factor
• Reset to defaults

See Smart Connectors.

Theme Style

Appears when the canvas theme is not Clean (for example Sketch, Comic, or Blueprint). Adjust Roughness, Bowing, Multi-stroke, Fill Pattern (Original, Hachure, Cross-Hatch, Dots), hachure angle and gap, Stroke Thickness, and Sharp Corners. Reset to Preset restores the theme's values. See Autostyles.

Document Colors

The document's colour palette, shown as swatches. Click Edit Palette… to change it. Palette colours also appear in colour pop-ups throughout the app.

Canvas

The page background: Background color, Gradient, and Background image (texture presets or a custom image). See Canvas Background.

Related Topics

• Styling Overview — General styling concepts
• Fill Styles — Detailed fill options
• Stroke Styles — Detailed stroke options
• Shadows & Effects — Drop and inner shadows
• Color Schemes — Working with colour schemes
• Connectors — Connector basics
• Tables — Table basics