Touch & Tablet

Three Layouts

Novaboard picks a layout from your screen width and whether its main pointer is a finger. You can override it in Window → Display (in the phone layout, the Display section of the menu).

• Mobile: for screens 768 pixels wide or narrower. Sheets and drawers take the place of docked panels. Details below.
• Tablet: for touch-first tablets such as the iPad. The same docked panels as on a computer, with larger buttons and a wider toolbar. Floating panels and pop-out windows are off.
• Desktop: everything else, including touchscreen laptops. Touch and pen gestures still work in this layout.

Changing the layout only changes the interface; touch and pen input stay available in all three. See Menus for the Display options.

Gestures on the Canvas

• One finger or the pen: draws with the current tool.
• Two fingers, dragged: pans the view.
• Pinch: zooms around the point between your fingers.
• Two fingers, twisted: rotates the view of the file. Novaboard locks onto whichever of pan, zoom or rotate you start, so a pan does not drift into a rotation.
• Two-finger tap: undo.
• Three-finger tap: redo.
• Four-finger tap: Zen Mode on or off (hides every panel).
• Swipe in from the left or right edge: previous or next frame. The swipe starts in a thin strip along the side of the canvas.
• Long-press (hold about half a second without moving): opens the wheel menu at that point. Wheel actions that need a position, such as picking a color, use the spot you pressed. The hold never leaves a dab of paint.

A tap counts when all fingers land together and lift within a quarter of a second without moving. Once two or more fingers are on the glass, the gesture never turns back into a stroke, even if one finger stays down.

Finger, Pen and Palm

A pen always draws, and fingers never paint while it does. When a pen lands while a finger is drawing, the pen takes over. While the pen draws, two fingers can still pan and zoom beside it. If a second finger lands while one finger is drawing, that finger stroke is taken back and the touch becomes a gesture instead.

Stylus-only drawing

Turn off Draw with finger in User Preferences under Editor Behavior to draw with the pen only. Your fingers then never draw: they still pan, zoom, rotate, tap and swipe while the pen is up, and a horizontal swipe anywhere on the canvas changes frame. While the pen draws, touches are ignored completely, so a resting palm never leaves a mark. The setting is greyed out on devices without touch input.

Stylus settings

The Stylus section of User Preferences has two settings for active pens:

• Pen long press opens the wheel menu: on by default. Turn it off if holding the pen still during slow strokes keeps opening the menu.
• Pen offset: shifts every pen position by a few pixels, for digitizers that report the nib slightly away from where it touches the screen. Calibrate stylus asks you to tap the middle of a series of crosshairs with the pen (finger and mouse taps are ignored), then lets you check the result before saving. You can also type the X and Y values yourself.

A pen's side button usually acts as a right click, so it follows the Right Mouse Button setting. The eraser end of a pen erases while you use it and returns to your tool afterwards.

Long-Press Menus

Anything that has a right-click menu on a computer opens it with a long-press: layer rows and groups, palette swatches, panel tabs, and the cards and groups in the file grid. On the canvas, a long-press opens the wheel menu instead.

The Phone Layout

• Top drawer: the palette and a timeline strip. The three dots under it cycle between hidden, the default strip and the full timeline.
• Center button (the round button at the bottom, showing your current tool): opens the bottom drawer with the tool grid and the current tool's options. Long-press a tool in the grid to choose between the tools grouped under it.
• Menu button (right of the center button): the full menu as a sheet, with File, Edit, Image, Layer, View, Display and Tools sections. Preferences and the Palette Manager are in Tools.
• Focus button (bottom left): fits the file back in view and clears any view rotation or flip.
• Status bar: tap the file name to go back to the file grid; buttons there open the color picker, the layers drawer and the history.
• Mode bar: while you are making a selection or transforming, a bar names the mode and offers Cancel and Done.

The first time you open a file, a card lists the main gestures. The file grid uses a compact toolbar: the filter stays, and sorting and the grid or table view sit behind one View options button. See File Grid.

Not in the phone layout

Some commands need a panel or dialog that the phone layout does not have. To use them, switch Display to Tablet or Desktop.

• File: Save to Disk, Import Images, Import Spritesheet and the reference imports. Share… sends a PNG of the file through your device's share sheet, and Export is still there.
• Edit: Keyboard Shortcuts and the Wheel Menu editor.
• Select: Quick Mask.
• Image: Replace Color, Split Image and the color depth presets. Color mode changes go through the Color Mode item instead.
• View: tile mode, the grayscale view, live preview, the active layer highlight, slices and the command palette. Zoom is a pinch, and the grid and guides have their own Grid & Guides sheet.

iPhone and iPad

In Safari and every other browser on iPhone and iPad, at most two files can be open as tabs at once. Close a tab before opening a third. Adding Novaboard to the home screen runs it in its own window without the browser's toolbars. See Desktop App & Install.