Frames

Organize your canvas with frames.

Frames are designed to help with organizing your canvas into logical groups of objects, and have a number of helpful attributes to achieve this:

  • Moving or rotating a frame moves all contained objects with it.

  • Frames can be hidden, so you can use them to hide extraneous detail.

  • Frames can be added to reports as views of your canvas.

  • Frames can be given reader-friendly names.

  • Cell connectors can be disabled per-frame, for better control of canvas legibility.

  • Frames can be locked for modification by non-analysts, helping keep complex logic intact.

Insert a frame

To add a frame, select the frame button from the canvas toolbar, or use the F keyboard shortcut.

When dragging to create a frame, if it is dragged over any other objects they will be added to the frame upon creation.

Managing frame contents

To add an object to a frame, either:

  • Drag the boundaries of a frame around an object to add it to the frame

  • Drag the object inside the frame boundaries

When an object is about to be added to a frame, the borders of the frame will be highlighted.

To remove an object from a frame, just drag the object out of the frame.

Not sure if an object is in a frame or just above it? Try moving the frame and see if the object moves too.

Moving a frame

To move a frame, first select it by clicking either the frame name in the top left or a part of the frame that doesn't have an object. Without releasing the mouse button, moving the mouse will translate the frame.

If you click an object inside the frame, you will only move that object instead of moving the entire frame.

Hiding a frame

To hide a frame, select the frame then click the eye icon - the handle of the frame will remain visible. Frames can be un-hidden by clicking the eye icon again.

Frames within frames

Frames cannot include other frames - if a frame is dragged over another frame, they will not become logically connected.

However, if a frame spatially contains another frame, that frame will be visible in the report if the parent frame is a report frame. This is helpful when using hidden frames in reports to add additional context that a reader may optionally reveal.

Managing frame visibility

The frame controls in the design sidebar contain additional options for controlling who is allowed to edit or view the frame:

The options here are:

  • Show/hide the frame contents

  • Show/hide cell connectors in the frame

  • Lock/unlock the frame

Analysts may also restrict modification of these settings to analysts only. For example, an analyst may want to add some complex analysis to a frame, hide and lock the frame, then limit access to analysts only. Other non-analyst users will then see the frame handle only, but not be able to open or edit the frame or its contents.

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