Pick objects

This tool allows to directly pick objects on the canvas by clicking or drawing a frame. The configuration area of the tool includes a mask where all selectable object types are defined. With the buttons All and None every object can be quickly selected or unselected. The same buttons in the Select area however, only apply to the selecting mask.

Shortcuts
	Add Objects to current selection

Clipboard

The clipboard tool copies graphics data into the system wide clipboard. With it a frame is defined on the canvas which is copied as bitmap data by clicking the Confirm icon. That data can be pasted again within Wonderbrush or other applications. In Wonderbrush this is done with Edit->Paste. The menu item is only selectable when there's data in the clipboard. Pasting creates a new bitmap object and automatically activates the transfomation tool.

Shortcuts
	Lock aspect ratio when resizing the frame

Crop

A canvas can be cut but also grown with the cropping tool. If the Subpixels option is active, the frame that defines the new canvas size doesn't lock exclusively onto whole pixel positions. Therefore, objects will be marginally moved when the tool is applied.

Shortcuts
	Lock aspect ratio when resizing the frame

Transform

The tool displays a frame around all in the list selected objects, which is used to move, rotate, and resize them as a group. As soon as the frame is manipulated, the transformation begins and can be edited until the Confirm icon is clicked. Within this action single steps of the transformation can be undone. After the transformation was applied, it can only be reverted completely. Plus, the frame will be reset to start a new transformation.
If the group of selected objects is changed, the transformation is automatically reset and started anew.

Shortcuts
	Lock aspect ratio when resizing the frame Lock movement to horizontal or vertical direction
	Move object group by one pixel
	Move object group in smaller steps
/	Select objects directly by clicking into the canvas (like the Pick object tool)

Edit gradient

This tool edits the Gradient property of the selected object. For that, the (fill)-Mode property has to be set to Gradient. If an appropriate object is marked, the tool displays a frame around the area covered by the gradient. The gradient can be transformed with this frame. The configuration area of this tool shows, among other things, a control that allows to change the colors of the gradient. By clicking, the active gradient point is set, which also adjusts the currently set color. If the current color is changed while a gradient point is active, this color is automatically transferred to that gradient point. The Opacity control refers to the currently active gradient point as well.
New gradient points can be set either by a double click or by drag&dropping of a color into an empty area. The Del key deletes the active point.

The option Inherit Transformation determines if the gradient information is independent of the object or not. By default, a gradient is moved together with the object it fills.

Shortcuts
	Lock aspect ratio when resizing the gradient Lock movement to horizontal or vertical direction
With activated gradient control
	Move active gradient point
	Activate next or previous gradient point
	Delete active gradient point

Brush

The brush tool works best with a graphic tablet, because the Opacity, Radius and Hardness is dynamically controlled with the pen's pressure. The parameters that are to be pressure controlled are activated with the checkbox to the upper right of the respective slide control. The slider then shows two small handles, representing the minimal and maximal pressure. Currently, only circular brush tips are supported. Clicking on the brush preview opens a window where sets of brushes can be edited and saved. The option Subpixels defines if the mouse or pen position is scanned also between pixel coordinates. The option Solid prevents the generation of interim values of the opacity of an object. The Spacing slider controls the positioning of the brush's form along its path.

Shortcuts
	Increase brush radius by 10%
	Increase brush radius by 1 Pixel
	Decrease brush radius by 10%
	Decrease brush radius by 1 Pixel
	Connect to the end of the previous brush object

Pen

The pen works quite similar to the brush, only its tip is always just one pixel in size. That's why the parameters for Radius, Hardness, and Distance don't apply.

Shortcuts
	Connect to the end of the previous pen object

Eraser

The eraser works exactly like the brush, only that the created brush objects' Mode properties are automatically set to Erase. By changing their Mode property, brush objects can be converted to eraser objects and vice-versa at any time.

Pen eraser

The pen eraser is to the pen what the eraser is to the brush: It creates pen objects in Erase mode.

Clone brush

The clone brush copies parts of the picture, using the same parameters for adjusting the shape of the tip as the brush tool. When activated, the first click sets the source. The second click then defines the direction and length for the movement and starts the cloning. By pressing the command key (depending on your system configuration that's Ctrl or Alt), a new vector of movement is set.

The interesting feature of the clone tool in Wonderbrush is that the clone objects are refreshed when the source is changed. That means, the clone function is dynamically generated.

Shortcuts
/	Set a new source
	For more shortcuts, see Brush

Blur brush

The blur brush is another "brush-based" tool. It blurs the areas of the picture that are under the brush tip. After creation, the blurred radius can currently only be changed in the property list.

Bucket fill

This tool replaces one color in the picture with another. The Tolerance parameter controls to what extend similar colors will be filled as well. The setting Softness reflects the needed tolerance of the opacity channel of the created object (i.e. the higher the divergence from the base color, the lower the resulting opacity).

When the option Contiguous Area is deactivated, all areas of the chosen color will be filled, regardless if it creates several independent filled areas.

Clicking into the canvas defines the base color and creates a bucket fill object. That object has a fixed opacity mask (see "Objects"), that is transferred with the set mode onto the layer. Therefore, by adjusting the Mode property, a bucket fill object can also be used for erasing or a gradient.

Text

The text tool isn't just for simple labeling, it can also create whole blocks of text. While the settings are therefore more complex, you probably already know most functions from other applications.

Clicking on the canvas produces a new text object with the currently set parameters. On the canvas, the text tool displays a line with two handles that control the width and the indention of the text block. Currently, the text isn't displayed directly on the canvas, but in a text field inside the tool area. That's where the most important parameters like font type and size are located. A lot of other settings are adjusted in the property list of the text object. Some of the maybe not so widely known settings are explained below:

Spacing is a factor for the tracking, which controls if letters are placed closer together or wider apart.

Line Spacing is a factor for the line spacing, based on the font size.

P. Spacing is another factor and defines the distance between two paragraphs in relation to the normally used line spacing.

Hinting means that the shapes of letters are slightly distorted and moved in order to fit the important form elements better onto the available pixels and thereby improving the readability on the screen. However, with scaled or rotated text objects, this option loses its sharpening effect.

Kerning effects the distance between single letters and uses possibly available additional information of the font that can improve the typeface. If, for example, after a capital T follows a small e, the e can be moved closer to the T, although that means it won't have the normal tracking. If the T is followed by an i, the normal tracking of the T is used, to prevent the letters from overlapping. If Kerning is deactivated, the "normal" tracking is always used, regardless of the letter combination.

Solid deactivates the antialiasing for letters. Other object types offer this option as well.

Shortcuts
	Increase text size by 10%
	Increase text size by 1 point
	Decrease text size by 10%
	Decrease text size by 1 point
	Move text object by 1 pixel
/	Previous font type
/	Next font type

Shape

The shape tool produces so called vector paths. They can describe the borders of an area or are displayed as lines or curves with a certain width. A vector path runs along so called "control points", which are exactly what is created or edited by the shape tool. A control point consists of max. three "sub-points". The vector path runs always through the main control point. Each of the other two points define the tangent in which the path enters or leaves the main point. Thus any curve can be described very easily. Wonderbrush signals the various editing possibilities with different mouse pointers.

Creating a new point

A new point is created by clicking into an empty area; it sets the position of the main control point. Keeping the mouse button pressed, the leaving tangent can be edited. The entering tangent is automatically mirrored.

Editing a point

If the mouse pointer is over an existing point, its position can be moved. If the main control point is moved, it takes its tangent points with it. If one tangent point is moved, Wonderbrush adjusts the other one in way that they remain on a line. This connection can be severed to achieve a corner in the path (more on that later).

Inserting a point

If the mouse pointer hovers over the vector path itself, a new point can be inserted. It will be inserted in a way that maintains the shape of the path, automatically adjusting the preceding and following points. Keeping the mouse button pressed, the leaving tangent can be edited just like when "creating a new point".

Closing a path

Clicking the first control point "closes" the path. Then, the default behavior for areas outside the path isn't "insert point" anymore, but "select point". Paths created in Outline mode can't be closed by clicking the first point. Here, it's done by checking the control Closed.

Extended functions

Deleting a point  /

When pressing the Alt key (or Ctrl if Alt is configured as command key on your system), clicking on a point will delete it. This works too if the point is a tangent point.

Square corner  /

To delete both tangent points at once, the main control point is clicked while holding the Ctrl key (or Alt if that is configured as command key on your system). Afterwards, the leaving tangent point can be created once more by keeping the mouse button pressed while dragging over the main control point. The entry tangent point will again be mirrored accordingly.

If the Ctrl (or Alt) key is pressed while clicking on a tangent point, the point can be moved separately without disturbing the other tangent point. Now the connection between tangent points is severed and they are not in line anymore. From now on they are individually movable. To re-establish the connection, hold down the Ctrl (or Alt) key, click on the main control point to delete both tangent points and drag out two new ones.

Selecting points  

You may have noticed that the last clicked control point always stays selected. You can add points to the selection (and remove them) by clicking while holding the shift key. The shift key always triggers the "select point" mode, offering a selection frame when you click outside the path. The selection state of all points inside that frame is then inverted.

A click into an empty area will clear the selection of all points.

Transforming a selection        

These selected points can be moved or transformed as a group. Either the points are moved pixel by pixel with the cursor keys (for more precise movement hold down the shift key), or you click on the Transform icon in the shape tool configuration (not the general transformation tool for objects). The latter option allows a more complex transformation on the selected group.

Deleting a selection    

Clicking the icon Delete control points deletes the selected points. In case that all points of a path were selected, the whole (sub)path of the shape object will be deleted. Alternatively, the Del key can also be use for deletion.

A single shape object can consist of several independent paths. If paths overlap, the Filling Rule property defines if an area is "outside" or "inside" the shape area.

Non-Zero means that the direction of the control points around the paths influences the "outside"/"inside" decision: "Non-Zero" paths count as plane, whereas "Even-Odd" means they're holes - although only if they are on the inside of another path.		Even-Odd means that "inside" and "outside" are alternating when a subpath confines a new area. In this mode, subpaths that are inside the area of other paths, always define a "hole".

Note that these rules only apply for the paths of a single shape object. Several shape objects on the same layer do not influence each other as described, but are superimposed like normal objects. The function Object->Special->Merge Shapes combines several shape objects. This creates one shape object from all in the list marked objects and now includes all the subpaths of the formerly separate objects.

To get a new subpath, the icon New path has to be activated. It stays active until the user clicks outside the existing paths to plant the first control point of the new path. (To leave this mode, either click on the Cancel icon or press the Esc key.)
Instead of activating the icon New path you also press the Option key and click to start a new subpath.

Reversing the path  

The order in which the control points are set, establishes a direction of the path. As that direction can be crucial for the Filling Rule, a function is needed to reverse the path. That's done by the icon Reverse Path. The first control point becomes the last and so on. That option also becomes interesting if you want to add new control points to the beginning of the path instead of the end.

Ellipse/(Rounded) Rectangle

This tool produces a predefined shape object: an ellipse or a rectangle. By clicking and dragging a new object with the according size is created. An additionally pressed shift key locks the aspect ratio, resulting in circles and squares. After that these objects are treated as normal shape objects, so further editing happens with the shape tool.

Shortcuts
	Lock aspect ratio when resizing (to get a circle or a rectangle as new object) Lock movement to horizontal or vertical direction
	Move ellipse/rectangle by 1 pixel

Dropper

The dropper tool picks a color from the canvas. This simply sets the current color. Depending on the size of the tip a mixed color from a group pixels is generated.

Guides

Guides help with aligning objects, but aren't themselves part of the picture and can also be hidden. With the New icon, a new guide is inserted as defined in the tool's controls. Active guides are displayed bright red and can be precisely positioned with their control fields. Perfectly vertical guides have an Angle of 0, horizontal ones of 90 degrees.
The Leonardo da Vinci icon moves the active guide to the position of the next golden section. Based on the picture height and width, there are two golden sections respectively.

Shortcuts
	Delete active guide
	Move active guide 1 pixel