Semiconducted

Preface – some tips on what I’ve come across from playing with Omnigraffle v 5.x., and some other general tips to enhance your productivity.

BIG CHANGES for version 5.x:
Shared Layers
Pros:

Enables multiple shared layers per canvas
Can edit any shared layer in place at any time
These shared layers can be stacked in any order (Master Pages were always behind everything else)
Old Master Pages are automatically converted into shared layers

Cons:

Page numbers not shown in canvas list anymore. (They will probably change this due to popular demand.)
Many layers can get unwieldy
Selecting layers could be easier – one can select objects on any layer, but will paste within the ‘active’ one, so be mindful to know which layer you are pasting into!
Layers cannot be collapsed into single ‘layered masters’ like in Visio
All shared layers must be placed in a canvas, so ‘unused’ master pages from 4.x and earlier templates will not exist if opened in version 5.x.

Faster Tool Access

Mini inspectors in the ruler area allow for adjusting stroke, fill, drop shadow, dimensions
Bottom bar inspector allows for easier copying of object styles to other objects.
Goodbye drawer! Now see Canvas and List view simultaneously
Can turn “extras” on/off

Others:

Bezier Lines
Visio Import (.vsd)
“Paste and Match Style” for text, e.g. from a copy deck. Just make sure you have the text cursor active.

Tips and Tricks for all versions:

Shapes

Moving things around – The ‘snap to’ grid allows for easy alignment, but sometimes conflicts with the smart guides. When ‘snap to grid’ is on, arrow keys move objects by one ‘minor grid step’ (e.g. 10 px) while shift-arrow increments in single units (e.g. 1px). With ‘snap to grid’ turned off, this key combination is reversed.
Select an object, then several more objects to make them all the same size as the first: right click > size > make same <width, height, or size>
Edit > Shapes to combine shapes into weird shapes or make a shape editable (e.g. make that half-roundy tab you’ve always wanted)

V5 stencil browser

Images

You can get images into the canvas by ‘file > place image’, dragging it to the canvas, object, or image inspector ‘bucket’. To link to or replace an image, use ‘file > place’ or ‘select image’ from the image inspector.
To crop; in the image inspector, use ‘natural’ image display and the enhanced scale and shift sliders (previously you had to paint by numbers).

Using outline mode

Bezier Curves for lines

There’s a new connector in town and it wackier than ever. Bend it just like you would a freehand shape.

Pasting tips

Pay attention to the scaling ratios!
When pasting to new layers / canvases, make sure the last thing you clicked on is the item you are copying. If you click elsewhere on the canvas, the pasted item will appear at those coordinates but always within the ‘active’ layer (the one with the pen icon, not just highlighted).
Copy as pdf is useful to scale everything at once (text and boxes together) but removes editing ability.
Resize all, then quick keys to enlarge or shrink text (Cmd/+, Cmd/shift/-)

Multiple Windows

Behaviors / Presentation Mode

Clickthrough prototypes can be created by attaching links and visible states to shapes using the ‘actions’ tool.
You can export these to imagemap-based HTML prototypes, or use them in ‘presentation mode’

Export images for powerpoint etc.

Print / canvas size

You can now select multiple canvases and “print canvas” that way.
Watch for that little print icon on layers – if it is turned off, that layer will be seen, but won’t print. This is useful for comments or guide layers.
“Print canvas on one printer sheet” checkbox on canvas size inspector.

Useful for sitemaps and large canvases. Allows them to display at normal size yet still print out to one page. It works in combination with the “Auto-adjust the canvas size” checkbox, so the canvas will grow to accommodate new content.

“Size is multiple of printer sheets” checkbox will add a new whole page (and a lot of white space) instead of growing continuously.

Wishlist / Bug Fixes:

Allow the format painter to work across different layers (am I experiencing a bug here?)
Manage layer selection better. Objects get accidentally pasted in the different layer than the source object, making it very hard to manage components strewn across many layers.

Allow for a keyboard shortcut that doesn’t rely on the Fn key?. I don’t have that key on my bigger apple keyboard, so selecting the layers only with the mouse = pain in the butt.

Allow one to convert a regular layer to a shared one, or vice versa. This may be a very logical reason for this, but I keep finding the extra copy / paste / realign action a bit tedious.
Paste in place context menu item! Especially between layers. This sometimes seems to work between canvases, but often pastes everything offset 10×10 px.

Links