Toolbar
A reference for tools in the Lovision editor toolbar and their shortcuts when available.
Toolbar location
The toolbar is displayed at the bottom-center of the editor canvas. Some tools have keyboard shortcuts; tools marked with — in the shortcut column are opened by clicking their toolbar button.
Tools reference
Navigation and selection
| Tool | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Select (Move) | V | Click to select layers; drag to move them or draw a selection rectangle. Default tool. |
| Hand | H | Pan the canvas by clicking and dragging. Hold Space with any tool to temporarily pan. |
| Scale | K | Resize layers while proportionally scaling stroke widths, corner radii, and effects. |
Drawing tools
| Tool | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Frame | F | Draw a frame (container) on the canvas by clicking and dragging. |
| Rectangle | R | Draw a rectangle shape. |
| Ellipse | O | Draw an ellipse or circle. |
| Text | T | Click to add a text layer or click and drag to create a fixed-size text box. |
| Pen | P | Draw custom vector paths with Bézier curves and anchor points. Its More tools flyout holds the Pencil and Knife. |
Pen flyout
Open the Pen button's More tools menu to switch to one of these.
| Tool | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Pencil | ⇧P | Draw freehand paths. |
| Knife | E | Cut a path where you drag across it. Its settings bar carries a Cut width, and Shift constrains the cut to 15° steps — see Cutting with the Knife. |
Shape flyout: Path construction
The Shape button's menu (Rectangle, Line, Arrow, Ellipse, Polygon, Star) ends with a Path construction submenu of tools that draw new geometry off existing paths. They are toolbar-only: they have no keyboard shortcut. The Shape button keeps the last one you picked as its main action until you choose a shape again.
| Tool | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Tangent Line | — | Draw a line tangent to a path. |
| Perpendicular Line | — | Draw a line perpendicular to a path. |
| Circle by Points | — | Draw a circle through two points (diameter) or three points. |
| Arc by Points | — | Draw an arc between two points, shaped by a third. |
| Tangent Circle | — | Draw a circle tangent to two paths. |
| Curvature Circle | — | Draw the circle that matches a curve's curvature at a point. |
Path editing tools (contextual toolbar)
When a vector or shape is selected, the contextual toolbar at the bottom of the canvas shows the tools that edit the selected paths: a Path editing menu, an Orient menu, and a Mirror button. Each menu button shows the tool you used last and highlights while it is active; picking the active tool again returns to Select. These tools have no keyboard shortcut.
While any path tool is active, the contextual toolbar becomes that tool's settings bar, which starts with the tool's icon and name: Mirror shows the axes' origin X / Y (type a value to move pinned axes, or to pin following axes at that point), axis count, angle, active sector, Trim & Join, Edit path and, with one frame selected, Apply to frame / Update axes / Remove axes; Orient Transform its modes (Mirror, Duplicate, Retain selection, Lock size, Flip); Extend Path its extension mode, arc side and length constraint; Smart Remove Brush its diameter and tolerance; Tangent Circle its fixed radius; Arc by Points what the third point means. Tools without settings show their modifier keys instead. Each control's tooltip shows its keyboard equivalent (for example ↑ / ↓ for the axis count, T for Trim & Join, A / D / R / S for Orient Transform's modes). The check mark finishes the tool. Mirror's bar ends with ✕ Cancel and ✓ Apply instead: Apply creates the mirrored copies and returns to Select, or, when nothing could be mirrored (axes not pinned, nothing selected, nothing in the active sector, too many nodes), stays in the tool and says why on the canvas; Cancel leaves without mirroring. In Mirror, Enter (or the Edit path checkbox) opens the selected paths' or shapes' anchors under the pinned axes so you can edit them with the mirrored preview following live; Enter, Esc, or a double-click on empty canvas closes them again (Esc during an axis drag only drops that drag), and so does changing the selection or leaving the tool. An edited shape becomes a vector path.
| Tool | Menu | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Connect | Path editing | Join two open path endpoints with a smooth bridge. |
| Straighten | Path editing | Rotate a segment onto the nearest horizontal or vertical. |
| Extend Path | Path editing | Lengthen or shorten an open path from either endpoint. |
| Reposition Point | Path editing | Slide an anchor along its path without changing the shape. |
| Smart Remove Brush | Path editing | Brush over a path to remove anchors it doesn't need. |
| Orient | Orient | Rotate the selection by dragging a reference line. |
| Orient Transform | Orient | Rotate and scale the selection so one reference line maps onto another. |
| Mirror | — | Mirror the selection across 1–72 symmetry axes, optionally trimming and joining at the axes (a trimmed shape becomes a vector path). |
See Pen and vector editing for how each tool is used.
Content tools
| Tool | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Media | — | Open upload options for inserting images and videos. |
Panels
| Tool | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Design Tokens | — | Open the Design Tokens panel to create, organize, preview, and copy token values. |
Switching tools
- Click a tool icon in the toolbar.
- Press a tool's keyboard shortcut when one is listed.
- Press Esc from any drawing tool to return to the Select tool.
Tips
- After drawing a shape or frame, Lovision automatically returns you to the Select tool so you can immediately move or resize what you drew. Disable this in Preferences if you prefer to keep the tool active for multiple drawings.
- Holding the tool's shortcut key temporarily activates it in some modes — release to return to the previous tool.
- The Pen tool is the primary toolbar entry for custom vector paths.