Rectangle Tool Properties

When you select the Rectangle tool, its properties and options appear in the Tool Properties view. There are a few less options available when working on a bitmap layer.

NOTE: To learn how to use the Rectangle tool, see About Shape Tools.

Shape Tool Properties View - Rectangle

Icon Tool Name Description
  Previewing the Stroke

The Preview area lets you see a preview of the selected or customized stroke. You can click on the Show Extended Properties arrow to display advanced customization parameters.

Preview Stroke

  Size

Defines the maximum size of your drawing tool. This parameter defines the width of the stroke.

  Shape

You can adjust the start, end, and joint style of a pencil line.

Pencil Line Style

  • Start: Lets you select the style of the start tip, which is the first tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • End: Lets you select the style of the end tip, which is the last tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • Join: Lets you select the joint style. The joints are where the line curves abruptly. You could also define the Join style as the corner style. You can choose between Round, Mitre and Bevel style.
  Presets

Harmony provides a variety of presets and also lets you create and save your own. It is a good idea to create and save pencils with precise sizes and parameters when you draw and design for efficiency and consistency.

All tools using pencil lines share the same preset list. Therefore, the Polyline, Line, Rectangle, Ellipse, and Pencil tools share the same preset list.

New Pen Template New Brush

Allows to create a new preset.

New Pen Template Delete Brush

Allows you to delete your custom presets.

  Rename Brush

Allows you to rename a custom preset.

  Import Brushes

Allows you to import a set of XML Harmony presets previously exported via the Export Brushes command.

  Export Brushes

Allows you to export Harmony presets to backup or import on a different computer.

  Small Thumbnail, Large Thumbnail, and Stroke View

Allows you to display the presets as small square thumbnails, large square thumbnails or a list of stroke preview.

Draw Behind

When drawing on vector layers, the Draw Behind mode lets you paint behind existing art. By default, strokes appear over your work until you release the tool.

Automatic Filling

Use the Automatic Filling option to automatically fill your shape with the selected colour as you draw. By default, the Shape tool creates the outline of an empty shape that you can later fill using the Paint tool. This option is unavailable for the line tool.

Snap to Contour Snaps your selection or point to any line you position it on. As soon as you move it close enough to another line, your point or selection will snap to it.
Snap and Align Snaps the selected anchor point to any existing line while displaying temporary rulers as a guide that you can also snap your anchor point to.
Snap to Grid

Snaps your selection following the currently enabled grid.

Automatically Create Colour Art

As you draw in the Line Art layer, the Automatically Create Colour Art option instantly creates the corresponding strokes in the Colour Art layer.

Auto-Flatten Mode

When enabled, the Auto-Flatten mode automatically flattens the new lines created with the existing artwork as you draw in the Drawing or Camera view. Brush strokes will flatten with brush strokes and pencil lines will flatten with pencil lines.

NOTE:

Using the Select tool, you can use select and remove a segment of flattened pencil lines. Overlapping pencil lines drawn with the Auto-Flatten mode are essentially cut into segments by the overlap and can be treated as individual lines.

Use Stored Colour Gradient

The Use Stored Colour Gradient option makes your tool use the previously stored gradient position. This way, every new brush line or colour fill will use the stored gradient position.

  Draw Square Enable this option to draw perfect square (ratio 1:1) without holding any keyboard shortcuts. As an alternative, you can hold down the Shift key.

Size and Smoothness Tab

You can access advanced properties by clicking on the Previewing the Stoke button in the Tool Properties view.

Tool Name Description
Maximum Size Defines the maximum size of your drawing tool. This parameter defines the width of the stroke.
Minimum Size

Defines the minimum size of your stroke as a percentage of the maximum size. If you do not have pressure sensitivity from a pen table, the minimum size value will be ignored.

Smoothing Defines the number of control points added to the centre line. The fewer the control points the smoother (but less faithful) the line.
Contour Smoothing Defines the number of points on the contour share of your stroke. This will smooth out the bumps and waves on tour contour shape of your brush strokes.
Shape

You can adjust the start, end, and joint style of a pencil line.

Pencil Line Style

  • Start: Lets you select the style of the start tip, which is the first tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • End: Lets you select the style of the end tip, which is the last tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • Join: Lets you select the joint style. The joints are where the line curves abruptly. You could also define the Join style as the corner style. You can choose between Round, Mitre and Bevel style.

Texture Tab

You can access advanced properties by clicking on the Previewing the Stoke button in the Tool Properties view.

Icon Tool Name Description
Save to Preference Icon Copy to Preferences

You can add a pencil texture to your preset preferences.

  New Texture

Adds a new custom pencil texture to the list.

  Delete Texture Deletes a texture preset from the list.
  Rename Texture Renames the selected texture to keep the list organized.
  Presets

Harmony provides a variety of pencil texture presets and also lets you create and save your own.

  Pencil Texture Palette Displays the colour palette assigned to hold the pencil textures. Use the Colour View menu to assign a new palette.