The platform is designed for the greatest flexibility in design creation. This is to suit amateurs and experienced users alike, but that flexibility requires some minimal explanation before you set off.
This is a chicken or the egg question. Any object may have its stitch type set to anything. And that can happen during drawing, or after drawing. What this means is that you can draw an outline, and then assign it a stitch type. Or you can click a stitch type and then click a drawing mode to begin. There is a catch with this order of operation though – If an object is currently selected, and you click a stitch type, that selected object now becomes the new stitch type.
To clarify, if you want to begin a new object by setting its stitch type and then setting the input mode for drawing, make sure you don’t have anything selected first. Click on the design page background to have no objects selected.
If you prefer, you can select an input type, for example Point input mode, then select the type of object it will be, for instance a Fill. When you complete the outline, and the stitch type is set for Fill, the program knows that you will also want to draw an inclination line to set the angle, so it will automatically put you into that mode as soon as the outline is complete.
Some of you will prefer first to make your artwork as ‘Line’ objects with no stitches present, and then later set the stitch types. This is perfectly acceptable. Simply begin drawing. If there is an object selected, the new object type will switch to ‘Line’.
Often you will create a series of objects that are all the same stitch type, for example: Run, Run, Run. In this case, after your first object, make sure to click off it so that it is not selected. When you start drawing the object type will be picked up from the previous object. Alternately type ‘q’ to begin drawing an object using the input method and stitch type of the last-drawn object.
The creation of objects is also likely to cover one or two object types, repeated, one after the other. For example: Run, Satin, Run, Satin, etc. Or, another example: Run, Double, Run, Double.
For this circumstance, you can quickly begin creation of an object with two hotkeys: ‘q’ and ‘w’. These let you begin creating an object using the exact method of the last object (‘q’), or the one prior to it (‘w’). These hotkeys will not only select the object stitch type, but also the input mode as well – you can begin drawing immediately. For more keyboard shortcut information, please see the Keyboard Shortcut section.
Normally when you begin to draw a new object, it will be placed at the end of the current design. If you wish it to be created in a specific place, select the object that will sew before the object you are about to draw, and then begin drawing your object. This is useful if you wish to go back through your design and create connective runs between segments, or if you simply forgot a piece.
Often you will have a lot of objects, and sometimes you’ll want to find a selected object in the Object View quickly. Select it in the Main view by clicking on it, and then use the context menu option, ‘Reveal in Object View’. This will work only for the first selected object, if multiple objects are selected. The Object View will scroll to position and expand the design containing the object.