Tutorials MarkupCraft help Walkthroughs
Review on an iPad or touch screen
Pinch, pan and draw with your fingers or a stylus, what acts on lift, what needs a keyboard, and how to keep your work safe on a tablet.
Written for MarkupCraft 0.3. The same help is inside the app: press F1.
MarkupCraft works with touch: on an iPad (Safari or Chrome), on a touch-screen laptop, or on a Windows or Android tablet with a recent browser. In landscape a tablet shows the full layout.
Gestures
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| One finger | Draws with the current tool, or selects with Select |
| Two fingers, spread or pinch | Zooms around the point between your fingers |
| Two fingers, moved together | Pans; you can zoom and pan in one movement |
| A second finger while drawing | Cancels what the first finger started and starts zooming instead |
| Double-tap | Finishes a polyline, polygon, free cloud or area |
| One finger with Pan on | Pans |
What happens on lift
So that the first finger of a pinch never leaves a mark, some tools act when you lift your finger, not when you touch:
- Count: the dot is added on lift.
- Note: the note is placed on lift.
- Polyline, Polygon, Free cloud and Area: each point is added on lift.
- Line, Arrow, Length and Calibrate: when you tap the start and then tap the end, the end is placed on lift.
If your finger slides more than a little before lifting, it does not count as a tap and nothing is added. Tap cleanly; to correct, use Undo.
Tools you drag (Pen, Highlight, Cloud, Rectangle, Ellipse, Callout, Text, Stamp) start as soon as you touch; a second finger cancels them.
Selecting with a finger
- Tap a markup to select it; drag it to move it; drag a handle to resize. Zoom in first: handles are small.
- Drag across empty sheet to draw a selection window (left to right: fully inside; right to left: touching).
- In Select, one finger does not pan. Use two fingers, or choose Pan.
Things that need a keyboard
Without a keyboard there is no ⇧Shift, EscEsc or ReturnEnter. Here is what to do instead:
| Keyboard action | Without a keyboard |
|---|---|
| EscEsc to cancel or go back to Select | Tap Select in the toolbar |
| ⇧Shift for 45° lines, squares and circles | Draw carefully; adjust with the handles |
| ⇧Shift-click to add to a selection | Use a selection window |
| ⇧Shift-click to remove a count dot | Undo right after a wrong tap |
| ⌘ ReturnCtrl+Enter to finish typing | Tap outside the text box |
| ReturnEnter to edit a markup's text | Edit on the sheet in Properties |
| fn DeleteDelete | Delete in the toolbar or in Properties |
| Starting a new count group with EscEsc | Tap empty sheet with Select, then tap Count again |
A keyboard case or Bluetooth keyboard brings back every shortcut; on an iPad, the ⌘ key works for ⌘ZCtrl+Z and the rest.
Buttons do not show their tooltips on touch. The key for each tool is listed in Keyboard and mouse.
Stylus and Apple Pencil
A stylus (Apple Pencil, Surface Pen and the like) works like a mouse: it draws and selects, and acts at once on touch-down. Use your fingers for pinch and pan. Pressure does not change line width.
Opening and saving on an iPad
- Open shows the Files picker: iCloud Drive, On My iPad, and any storage app you have connected.
- Save asks to download; the copy lands in Files, under Downloads (or the folder set in Safari's settings).
Keep your work safe on a tablet
- Your name, tool settings and tool chest are kept in that browser on that iPad, like on a computer. See What stays in this browser.
- Before a site visit with no signal: while you are still online, open MarkupCraft in Safari (or Chrome) on the iPad and choose Save for offline in the bar at the top. Wait until it says "Offline ready" (it counts "Saving N of M"; the PDF reader and writer are about 6 MB). On site, open the same address or a bookmark of it: opening, marking up and saving PDFs work with no connection. If it says "Offline not available", you are in a private tab; use a normal one. See Working offline.
- Safari removes an offline copy you have not used for some weeks. Before a trip, click "Offline ready" and choose "Save again (get the newest version)".
- Very large plan sets use a lot of memory. On a tablet, open only the sheets you need for the visit.
On a phone
It works, but the screen is small: the parts stack (toolbar, sheet, status bar, panels, then the sheets list), and the toolbar scrolls sideways. Use a phone to look and to add a quick note, and a tablet or computer for real review.