Shapes and templates
From floor plan to network plan, without starting from zero.
On the left of the board sits a shape library like the one in Visio, with shapes of our own for flows, rooms, networks and software. And if you do not want to start with an empty board at all, take one of 33 templates.
The shape library
The library sits on the left of the board. You drag a shape onto the board, or you click it and then drag it out as big as you need.
Finding instead of searching
The search finds shapes by their name, whether or not you type umlauts. At the top are your favourites, which you collect with the star on any shape, and the shapes you used last. Below them every package follows as a group of its own that you open and close.
- Closed, the library becomes a narrow column with your latest shapes, and your account remembers whether it is open.
- Only what you need: Under My account, Shapes you hide packages you never use. That applies only to you, and whatever is already on a board stays drawn.
- On the phone the library comes as a sheet from the bottom, through “All shapes …” in the shapes menu.
Nine packages and over 1,600 icons
All shapes are drawn by us, with no manufacturer symbols, and their colours follow the fill and the line you choose.
| Package | Shapes | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Basic shapes | 45 | The nine shapes of the toolbar and many more, from cylinder to cogwheel |
| Flowchart | 31 | Start, step, decision, document, data and everything a flow needs |
| Floor plan | 52 | Walls, doors, windows and furniture, where one unit is one centimetre |
| Project management | 31 | Milestones, bars, tasks and states |
| Network | 35 | Router, switch, firewall, server, NAS and devices |
| UML and software | 32 | Classes, components, databases and interfaces |
| BPMN | 38 | Events, tasks, gateways and data objects |
| House and electrics | 34 | Sockets, switches, cables and building services |
| Signs and arrows | 50 | Arrows, notices and signs |
| Icons | 1,632 | The Lucide icons, sorted by theme into eight packages and once more all together as lines |
Cora saysA board carries the drawing of every shape it uses. If someone opens it on a server that lacks the package, they still see the shape, and it travels the same way in copies, templates and exports.
A floor plan that is right
In the Floor plan package, one unit is one centimetre. So a bed is as big as a bed, and a dimension line shows how much room is left. Put the floor plan on millimetre paper or squares, and walls, doors and furniture snap to the grid and to each other. If you want to move things freely, hold Alt while you do.
Whatever stays put, you lock, so that no wall slips while you shift the furniture.
Your own shape packages
Whoever manages a space creates packages of their own there, and the operator can release packages for everyone on the server. You find this under Settings, Spaces, Shape packages, and for the whole server under Settings, Server, Shape packages.
- From SVG files: add several at once, and nexcanvas turns them into shapes.
- From the board: select a drawing and choose “Save as shape” in the right-click menu.
- Passed on as a file: You download a package and upload it again on another server.
- Switched on and off: A package can be switched off without deleting it.
Cora saysFrom a package, nexcanvas accepts drawing elements only, never scripts. So even a package from someone else's hands cannot do any harm.
33 templates in seven groups
You pick a template when you create a board, or you browse the “Templates” page in the top bar.
- To begin: Blank, Mood board, Retro, Kanban, Mind map and Week plan.
- Flow and process: Flowchart, Process with swimlanes, Decision tree.
- Project: Gantt schedule, Roadmap, Kanban with limits, Milestone plan, RACI matrix, Project brief.
- Rooms: Floor plan flat, Office, Meeting room, Seating plan.
- Network: Home network, Rack layout, Network plan with VLANs, Homelab.
- Thinking: Large mind map, SWOT analysis, Business model canvas, Empathy map, Ishikawa, Eisenhower matrix and two retros.
- Organisation: Org chart and Month plan.
Your own templates
You save a finished board as a template through its menu, for a space or for everyone on the server. If you like, only the frame: frames, shapes, texts and lines stay, but notes, drawings, photos and files do not. Your own templates can be renamed, downloaded and uploaded again on another server.
