Uniting shapes but keeping inner lines

OmniGraffle OmniGraffle for Mac
#1

Hi,

I am trying to create a simple document shape, basically a rectangle with a corner folded over. When I use union i loose the inner lines of the triangle. Is there a way of merging two or more shapes together, but not loose the inner lines. I know I could group them together but that isnt as elegant as creating a single shape.

Thanks
Jamie

#2

If you look in shapes, there is a shape called “Note” that may be close enough to what you want that you can draw it and use point editing to tweak it. I’d also do a quick search of stencils in stenciltown to see if you can find a stencil with a shape you can use if the note shape isn’t close enough.

#3

Basically, you can’t get a drawing of any substance or depth out of a drawing tool, any drawing tool, until you are familiar with grouped objects.

Grouped Shapes (and lines, and text …) is nothing to be scared of.

Here is a bit of a demonstration using the Note Shape as an example.

Note
Note1402Ă—711 124 KB

  1. The standard Note Shape (comes with OG). Nothing wrong with it, but it is limited. It is fine for:

  • the original proportions (notice the distorted corner when standard - or golden - proportions are used),

  • for solid colours,

  • and of course it is 2D.

  1. But solid colours are too bright for most drawings (we want to articulate the point being communicated, not the colours), we need opacity.

  • When that is set (50% blue here) the blue is lost: in this instance yellow plus blue shows up as green.

  • We do want Shapes that we can lay on top of a background colour, or not, without having to fiddle and create a custom grouped shape each time.

  1. Here is a Note that has:

  • no distortion, regardless of the size that it is changed to

  • allows opacity without regard to the background (we do want to change the opacity without having to fiddle)

  • and has a simple 3D effect.

That is worth sticking in a Stencil. I have a few on GraffleTopia.

Cheers

Table and setting borders
#4

Thanks for that. I appreciate your response.

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