Every Tool in the AIGE Canvas: A Beginner's Tour
The AIGE canvas toolbar shows about ten buttons at a time, but it holds two complete tool sets and rotates between them. If you have only ever seen one, half the canvas has been invisible to you. This is the full list, with the keyboard shortcut for everything that has one.
New to the board itself? Start with how the canvas works, then come back here.
The switch that changes the bar
At the left end of the toolbar are two small icons: a spark and a pen nib. The spark is AI mode, for working with generated content. The nib is Design mode, the drafting set. Click either and the whole bar turns over to the other set.
Select, Hand, Text and Sticky note live in both modes, because you need them whatever you are doing. Everything else belongs to one mode or the other.
AI mode
Tool | Key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Select | V | Pick, move, scale and rotate anything on the board. |
Hand | H | Pan the view without disturbing objects. |
Frame / box | R or B | Draw a rectangle, most often used to frame a group of work. |
Arrow | A | Draw a connector between two things. |
Text | T | Place an editable text box. |
Sticky note | S | Drop a coloured note for yourself or a collaborator. |
Social post | none | Preview a carousel you have built as the post it will become. |
Content | none | Open the carousel calendar. |
Design mode
Tool | Key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Select | V | Same as in AI mode. |
Hand | H | Same as in AI mode. |
Shapes | none | Opens the shape library described below. |
Pen | P | Freehand drawing. |
Text | T | Same as in AI mode. |
Sticky note | S | Same as in AI mode. |
Create component | none | Builds a reusable machine and opens its editor. |
Social post | none | Same as in AI mode. |
The shape library
The Shapes button opens a flyout holding sixteen things to draw. Two are line tools, Line (L) and Arrow (A). The other fourteen are closed shapes: rectangle, ellipse, triangle, diamond, hexagon, star, heart, pill, bolt, speech bubble, drop, shield, sparkle and flower.
Whichever you pick becomes the active shape, so the button remembers your last choice and drawing another one is a single drag. Ellipse also has its own key, E or O, if you use it often enough to skip the menu.
Always available, whichever mode you are in
To the right of the tools, past a divider, sit three buttons that never change: Add image uploads from your computer, and Undo (⌘Z) and Redo (⇧⌘Z) walk the board's history. A zoom control sits separately in the bottom-right corner.
Keyboard shortcuts
Tool letters are single presses, no modifier needed. They are ignored while you are typing in a text box or a sticky note, so they will never mangle what you are writing.
Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
V, H, T, S, P | Select, hand, text, sticky, pen |
R or B | Frame / box |
A, L, E or O | Arrow, line, ellipse |
Space (held) | Temporary hand, whatever tool is active |
⌘Z, ⇧⌘Z | Undo, redo |
⌘D | Duplicate the selection |
⌘G, ⇧⌘G | Group, ungroup |
⌘A | Select everything |
⌘+, ⌘−, ⌘0 | Zoom in, zoom out, reset to 100% |
⇧2 | Zoom to the current selection |
Arrow keys | Nudge one pixel, or ten with Shift held |
⌥ and an arrow | Align the selection to that edge |
⌥⇧H, ⌥⇧V | Distribute evenly, horizontally or vertically |
Delete or Backspace | Remove the selection |
Escape | Drop the selection and return to Select |
The right-click menu
Right-clicking is where the canvas keeps the things that would clutter a toolbar, and the menu changes with what you clicked.
On empty board you get the add commands (image, frame, text, sticky note, social post) alongside Select all, Fit content and Reset zoom to 100%. Fit content is the one to remember: it frames everything you have made, which is the quickest way back when you have panned into empty space.
Right-click an object instead and the menu turns practical. Send to chat as reference feeds the image back to the agent as the basis for the next generation. Remove background, Extract prompt and Copy prompt do what they say. Reuse image properties carries settings across to your next request. Below those sit the arrangement commands: group and ungroup, flatten, outline stroke, flip horizontal and vertical, bring to front, send to back, download and delete.
Which mode should you be in?
A simple rule covers most sessions. If you are asking the agent for things and arranging what comes back, stay in AI mode; frames and arrows are the tools for organising generated work. Switch to design mode when you start adding your own marks on top: a shape, a drawn line, a label positioned exactly.
Nothing is lost by switching. The mode changes which buttons the bar offers, never what is on your board, and every shortcut works in both modes regardless of which buttons are showing.
Honest note: the shortcuts above assume a Mac. On Windows and Linux, use Ctrl wherever ⌘ appears and Alt wherever ⌥ appears.
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