In Free Drawing, there are different types of objects:
Symbols
Symbols can be found on the left in the menu, for example in the “Circuit diagram symbols” or “PV symbols” folders. They represent technical symbols that can be used in Free Drawing.
They can be placed by dragging and dropping them from the side menu onto the drawing area.
By double-clicking a placed symbol, the editing menu can be opened. Depending on the type of symbol, various properties can be edited here, such as the short designation, long text, and placeholders. For terminal blocks, for example, the terminals can be configured in this way.
General Devices
Like symbols, the general device can be found on the left in the menu and can be placed in the drawing area using drag and drop. Here, too, the editing menu can be opened by double-clicking.
The lower-right corner of general devices is highlighted in orange. This corner can be moved while holding down the left mouse button in order to resize the device.
General devices support different colors, line widths, and line styles.
They also support text in the center of the “device” as well as equipment identifiers and short descriptions to the left of the device, as with the other symbols.
Lines / Conductors
Using line drawing mode, segments are drawn. These segments can merge with existing segments if they overlap, or connect if they touch each other. If the color of a segment is changed, this affects the entire line, including all other segments of the line. If a segment is moved, connected segments are moved along with it directly.
Frames
Frames are drawn using frame drawing mode.
Frames can also have different colors, line widths, and line styles. Like general devices, their size can be changed using the orange corner at the lower right.
Frames also have an optionally configurable heading.
Texts
Texts are created using text mode. They can be placed freely in the drawing area and do not need to be aligned to the grid.
Their size can be changed using the orange corner at the lower right. The note always tries to fit the text as well as possible into the selected size, using line breaks, and then automatically adjusts the size of its frame so that no unnecessary space is taken up around the text.
Texts can be shown with or without a visible frame; see the editing menu, which opens by double-clicking a text.
Tables
The “Table” element is located on the left in the tree, directly below the general device. From there, it can be placed directly on the drawing area using drag and drop.
As soon as a table is selected, the following editing options appear:
- Edit entire table – clicking the icon opens a menu in which the following properties can be changed for the entire table:
- Text size
- Alignment
- Draw cells / do not draw cells
- Edit columns – clicking the icon opens a menu in which the following properties can be changed for the column:
- Text size
- Alignment
- Insert column to the left/right
- Delete column
- Edit rows – clicking the icon opens a menu in which the same properties as editing columns.
- The familiar options such as “duplicate” and “delete”, which other elements such as frames and notes have, are also available for tables.
- Between the columns there is a line that can be dragged left or right with the mouse to change the column widths.
- Additional columns and rows can be added directly to the right of and below the table.
By double-clicking a cell, the text of the cell can be edited directly. Pressing “Tab” jumps directly to the next cell, allowing cell contents to be edited quickly.
