Panels & UI

Paint Forge's interface includes a menu bar, tool options bar, right sidebar panels, floating panels, a status bar, and a command palette for quick access to any feature.

Command Palette

Press Ctrl+K to open the Command Palette — a searchable list of all available commands across every category. Type to filter by name. Recent commands appear at the top. Many commands include inline descriptions to explain what they do.

Menu Bar

The menu bar provides access to all features organized into five menus:

File

• New Project — create a blank canvas from 10 project type templates with type-specific defaults
• Open Project — browse and load cloud-saved projects
• Recent Projects — quick access to the last 5 opened projects
• Save (Ctrl+S) — save to cloud (requires sign-in)
• Import Image — upload an image file to the canvas
• Export (Ctrl+Shift+E) — export canvas as PNG/JPEG/WebP/AVIF/SVG/PSD
• Export Active Layer — export just the active layer to a file
• Export as GIF — animated GIF export from layers
• Batch Export — export layers or objects individually as a ZIP
• Duplicate Project — create an independent copy of the current project
• Snapshots — save, browse, rename, and restore named project snapshots
• Preferences (Ctrl+,) — configure auto-save, undo history, theme, defaults
• Account Settings — change password, delete account (when signed in)

Edit

• Undo/Redo — full history support with descriptive action labels
• Cut/Copy/Paste/Paste in Place/Paste as New Layer
• Copy Merged (Ctrl+Shift+C) — composites visible layers to clipboard
• Copy as SVG — copies selected vector objects as SVG markup
• Copy Style (Ctrl+Alt+C) / Paste Style (Ctrl+Alt+V) — transfer visual properties between objects
• Copy Transform (Ctrl+Alt+T) / Paste Transform — transfer position, size, and rotation between objects
• Swap Fill & Stroke (Shift+X)
• Convert Text to Path — converts text objects to editable vector paths
• Duplicate / Delete selected objects
• Select All / Deselect / Select Similar / Invert Object Selection / Select All on Layer
• Lock/Unlock Selected Objects — toggle object lock without leaving the Select tool
• Toggle Object Visibility — show/hide selected objects
• Find & Replace (Ctrl+F) — search objects by name, type, color, or text
• Batch Rename — rename multiple objects with pattern templates
• Simplify Path — reduce path points with tolerance slider
• Selection submenu — invert, grow, shrink, feather, border, smooth, color range, save, load, quick mask, selection to path
• Align to Canvas — 6 alignment modes relative to document bounds

View

• Zoom In/Out/Reset (Ctrl+=/-/0) / Fit to Screen / Fill Screen
• Zoom to Selection — fits viewport to the current object selection (40px padding)
• Zoom to Fit Layer — fits viewport to the active layer's content bounds
• Zoom to Fit All Layers — fits viewport to the union bounds of all visible layers
• Toggle Fullscreen Mode (Tab) — hides browser chrome for maximum canvas area
• Outline Mode (Ctrl+Shift+O) — wireframe rendering (blue outlines, white background)
• Color Blindness Simulation (Ctrl+Shift+B) — cycles through Protanopia, Deuteranopia, Tritanopia, Achromatopsia, None
• Exposure Clipping Overlay — red=blown highlights, blue=crushed shadows
• Grid / Pixel Grid / Rulers toggles
• Grid Type — switch between Rectangular and Honeycomb grid types
• Snap to Grid / Snap to Guides / Snap to Pixels toggles
• Symmetry submenu — None, Vertical, Horizontal, Both, Radial
• Composition Guide submenu — 8 guide types
• Render Stats overlay toggle
• Toggle Status Bar — show or hide the bottom status bar
• Toggle Navigator Panel — show or hide the mini-overview navigator
• Toggle Toolbar — show or hide the left tool toolbar
• Toggle Tool Options — show or hide the tool options bar
• Toggle Color Bar — show or hide the floating canvas-level color bar
• Reference Panel toggle (View > Reference Panel)
• Reset Workspace Layout — restores all panels and toolbars to their default positions
• Viewport navigation — Back/Forward (Alt+ArrowLeft/Right)
• Canvas Size dialog

Image

• Flip Canvas Horizontal/Vertical — flips entire canvas (all layers’ raster, masks, and vector positions)
• Flip Object Horizontal/Vertical — flips selected vector objects
• Rotate Object (90° CW/CCW)
• Group/Ungroup layers (Ctrl+G / Ctrl+Shift+G)
• Remove Layer from Group — promotes a layer out of its parent group
• Align / Distribute / Z-Order operations
• Lock/Unlock / Show/Hide Selected Objects
• Lock All Layers / Unlock All Layers / Show All Layers / Hide All Layers
• Delete Hidden Layers / Delete Empty Layers
• Add Adjustment Layer submenu (13 types: Brightness/Contrast, Curves, Levels, Exposure, Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, Vibrance, Channel Mixer, Selective Color, Gradient Map, Threshold, Posterize, Invert)
• Copy Adjustment Settings / Paste Adjustment Settings
• Merge Down (Ctrl+E) / Merge Visible (Ctrl+Shift+E) / Merge Visible to New (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E) / Flatten
• Rasterize Layer
• Layer Via Copy (Ctrl+J) / Layer Via Cut (Ctrl+Shift+J)
• Repeat Last Filter (Ctrl+R)
• Clear Canvas — clears all raster content on the active layer
• Batch Resample Layers — scale all visible layers by a percentage
• Sort Layers — sort by name, type, or blend mode
• Auto-Crop to Content / Expand Canvas to Content
• Mask submenu — Add/Remove/Invert/Toggle Editing (Ctrl+\)/Mask from Selection/Selection from Mask/Copy Mask/View Mask Solo
• Path submenu — Union/Subtract/Intersect/Exclude (boolean path operations on vector objects)
• Replace Color — batch replace colors across vectors and raster
• Layer Comps / Auto-Organize Layers / Extract Palette / Generate Texture / Color Harmony / Batch Resample

Help

• Keyboard Shortcuts (?) — searchable shortcut reference dialog

Right Sidebar

The right sidebar contains four tabbed panels: Objects, Layers, Colors, and Canvas Settings. Toggle the sidebar with the \ key. Only the active panel renders for performance. The Properties panel, Filters panel, and Effects panel are embedded within the Objects tab and appear contextually when objects are selected.

Objects Panel

Lists all objects on each layer in z-order. Drag to reorder. Each object shows inline fill/stroke color swatches and a type icon. Right-click any object for a context menu with Select, Rename, Duplicate, Show/Hide, Lock/Unlock, and Delete actions.

Layers Panel

The layer tree with drag-and-drop reordering. Each layer shows visibility toggle (eye icon), lock toggle, opacity slider, and blend mode dropdown. Features include:

• Search by name or extended syntax (type:group, blend:multiply, color:red, empty, locked, hidden)
• Filter chips: Locked, Hidden, Has Mask, Adjustment, Group, Has Vector, Has Raster, Empty, Has Color
• Group folders with collapse/expand, collapse/expand all buttons
• Alt+click eye icon to solo a layer
• Recent and favorite blend modes in dropdown
• Color label indicator (8 colors for organization)
• Layer thumbnail with hover preview (200×150)
• Alpha lock toggle (Grid3×3 icon)
• Layer mask thumbnail and editing controls

Properties Panel

Displays transform inputs (X, Y, Width, Height, Angle) for selected objects. Includes:

• Fill and stroke styling with solid/gradient/pattern options
• Stroke dash, cap, join, and alignment controls
• Object opacity and blend mode
• Per-object effects (Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Stroke Effect)
• Filters panel for raster adjustments (embedded)
• Aspect ratio lock toggle
• Multi-select batch editing with mixed value indicators
• ArrangeToolbar: alignment, distribution, z-order, grouping
• TransformToolbar: flip, rotate, lock controls

Colors Panel

The Colors panel provides a full color editing workflow in the sidebar:

• Inline color picker with 4 display modes: square/wheel, HSL wheel, disc, and RGBA sliders with hex input
• Recent colors row — last 8 colors used, click to restore
• Color palette manager — browse, search, and switch between built-in and custom palettes
• Color shades — auto-generated tints and shades of the current color
• Project colors — colors extracted from all objects and layers in the document
• Color harmonies — complementary, analogous, triadic, tetradic, and split-complementary suggestions
• WCAG contrast ratio display for the current foreground/background color pair
• Import/export palettes as JSON files

Canvas Settings Panel

Configure grid overlay (type, size, color, snap), guide management, smart guides with snap threshold, symmetry painting axis, composition guides, background color/transparency, canvas dimensions, and DPI metadata.

History (Top Bar)

The undo/redo history is accessed via the History dropdown in the top bar (the clock icon). It shows a full timeline of actions with timestamps and a color-coded category badge per entry (paint, filter, transform, layer, selection, object, general). Click any entry to jump to that point in history. A snapshot button creates a named checkpoint you can return to at any time.

Color Bar

The Color Bar is a floating canvas-level strip showing the current foreground and background colors, plus a palette switcher. It provides quick color access without opening the full Colors panel. Toggle it from View > Toggle Color Bar or the command palette (view:pinnedpalette).

Navigator Panel

A mini-overview thumbnail of your entire canvas with a red rectangle showing the current viewport. Click or drag on the thumbnail to pan. Includes a zoom slider with +/- buttons and a percentage label that syncs with the main zoom level.

Reference Panel

A floating panel for reference images. Upload or drag-drop images, then zoom/pan/adjust opacity to reference while you work. Click on a reference image to sample its color. Supports multiple image tabs. Resizable from 200-600px. Toggle from View menu or Command Palette.

Mobile & Touch UI

On mobile and tablet devices, Paint Forge adapts its interface with a touch-optimized layout. Key mobile-specific elements include:

Mobile Canvas Controls

A floating pill bar (hidden on desktop) appears at the bottom of the canvas in portrait mode and along the right edge in landscape mode. It contains:

• Undo and Redo buttons with disabled-state toasts (throttled to prevent spam)
• Active tool indicator — tap to open the full tool grid for switching tools
• Color picker showing the current brush color — tap to open the color panel
• Layer Cycle button — tap to go to the next layer, long-press to go to the previous layer
• Fit to Screen and Fullscreen Toggle buttons
• Delete Selected button (shown when objects are selected)
• Zoom Out, Zoom %, and Zoom In controls
• Rotation badge (shown when the canvas is rotated) — tap to reset to 0°
• All buttons are 44px minimum touch targets with haptic feedback (navigator.vibrate)

Tool Hotbar

The tool hotbar is a configurable set of quick-access tool slots embedded in the mobile canvas controls pill. The number of slots adjusts automatically based on screen size. Long-press any hotbar slot to open the full tool grid and replace that slot. Double-tap a hotbar slot to open that tool's options panel.

Touch Gestures

Tool Options Bar

Below the menu bar, the tool options bar shows context-sensitive controls for the active tool. Each tool has its own set of options — brush size/opacity/variant, shape fill/stroke, text font/size, selection feather, etc. Tool option panels are lazy-loaded for performance.

Many tools support tool presets — save, load, rename, delete, export, and import preset configurations per tool via the Bookmark icon in the options bar.

Status Bar

The status bar at the bottom of the canvas displays:

Context Menus

Right-click in different areas for context-specific menus:

Find & Replace

Press Ctrl+F to open Find & Replace. Search objects by name, type, color, or text content. Navigate through results with Previous/Next buttons. Replace text content across matching objects. Shows "X of N" result counter.

Dialogs

Paint Forge includes 40+ specialized dialogs accessible from menus and the command palette:

• Export Dialog — format selection, quality, scale presets (0.5×–4×) and custom scale (0.1×–10×), live file size preview
• GIF Export — animated GIF from layers with frame delay, loop mode, scale, and progress indicator
• Canvas Resize — 13 dimension presets in categories, custom sizes, anchor grid, performance warning
• Batch Export — layer/object export to ZIP with naming templates and two-phase progress
• Array Duplication — grid copy with random variation (position, rotation, scale, opacity, hue) using seeded PRNG
• Find & Replace — search objects by name, type, color, or text content; replace text across matches
• Batch Rename — rename multiple objects with pattern templates ({name}, {type}, {#}, {layer})
• Batch Resample Layers — scale all visible layers by a percentage with destructive-operation warning
• Batch Color Replace — replace colors across vectors and raster with tolerance slider
• Select Similar — find objects matching reference by type/fill/stroke/blend mode with live count
• Extract Palette — k-means color extraction from layer or active pixel selection
• Generate Texture — procedural noise/clouds/plasma generator with seed control
• Color Harmony — generate complementary/analogous/triadic/tetradic/split-complementary palettes
• Simplify Path — interactive tolerance slider with before/after point count preview
• Auto-Organize Layers — group layers by content type (Text, Raster, Shapes, Adjustments)
• Layer Comps — manage named layer state snapshots (visibility, opacity, lock)
• Adjustment Dialog — floating quick-access dialog for applying individual adjustments without an adjustment layer
• Keyboard Shortcuts — searchable shortcut reference dialog
• Shortcut Remap — customize tool keyboard shortcuts with conflict detection
• Preferences — configure auto-save, undo history, export defaults, display theme, and tool behavior
• Account Settings — change password, delete account (when signed in)
• Snapshots — create, restore, rename, and delete named project snapshots
• Restore Project — offers to restore an auto-saved project when Paint Forge is reopened after closing with unsaved changes
• Project Picker — browse and load cloud-saved projects with thumbnail preview
• Upload Image — file picker with drag-and-drop support and file type/size validation
• Brush Tip Dialog — browse, import, and manage custom stamp brush tips
• Tool Presets Dialog — manage saved tool presets across all tools with import/export
• Tool Help Dialog — contextual reference for the currently active tool (tips and description)
• New Project — 10 project type templates with type-specific canvas size, tool, and layer defaults
• Add to Portfolio — attach the current artwork to a portfolio with title and description
• Grow/Shrink Selection — pixel expansion or contraction of the pixel selection
• Feather Selection — blur the edge of the pixel selection by a configurable radius
• Color Range — select pixels by color similarity with tolerance control
• Stroke Playback — replay recorded brush strokes