Frames and panels

Splitting a page into panels and drawing inside them.

Panels are cut, not drawn

In MangaLoft you do not draw panel borders one by one. You start with one panel that fills the page and cut it, the way you would rule lines across a sheet. The gaps between panels stay even by themselves, and each panel keeps its own layers.

A finished page of five panels: two on top, one wide panel in the middle, two at the bottom — A finished page: four cuts made these five panels.

Start a layout

Choose the frame tool, the last one in the strip. On a page with no panels yet, press Create Frame Layout. The page gets one panel.

Cut a panel

Drag across a panel, from outside one edge to outside the opposite edge.

A page cut into three panels: a straight cut across the top third and a slanted cut down the lower part. Callouts: Shift-drag for straight, drag for slanted, and the Delete Divider button

On Mac, hold Shift for a cut that is perfectly level or upright. Without Shift the cut follows your drag, so it can slant.
On iPad, drag the Pencil across the panel. A blue line follows it, and the panel is cut when you lift. A drag that is nearly straight snaps straight; a clearly angled drag makes a slant.
A cut only divides the panel you drag across. Cut again inside any panel to divide it further.

Each new panel appears in the layer list as a Frame with a layer inside, ready to draw in.

A page on iPad, twice. On the left a blue line follows the Pencil down the middle of the top panel. On the right the Pencil is lifted and the top panel is two panels, with a round handle at each end of the new border — On iPad: drag, then lift.

Move a cut

The app calls a cut a divider. With the frame tool, click a cut to select it. A dot appears at each end. Drag a dot along the edge to move that end; move both to shift the whole cut.

The slanted cut after its lower end was dragged to the left, now leaning the other way

Remove a cut

Select the cut and press Delete Divider on the right. The two panels become one again. What was drawn in the panel that went away is not thrown out: its frame stays in the layer list, hidden, marked Detached Frame. ⌘Z puts the cut back.

After Delete Divider: two panels have become one, and the layer list shows a greyed Detached Frame with its layer inside, its eye switched off

To use that drawing again, drag its layer out of the Detached Frame and drop it between two frames. It becomes a layer for the whole page, and is visible again as soon as it lands.

The layer dragged out of the Detached Frame. Its rectangle shows again inside the merged panel

If you do not need the drawing, right-click the Detached Frame and choose Delete….

Draw inside a panel

Choose the selection tool and click inside the panel. It is lit, the rest of the page goes grey, and what you draw is cut off at the panel's border. More in Layers.

Border width

The border line is one setting for the whole document: open Document Settings (the gear button in the page list) and change Border width under Frame Defaults. It applies to every panel on every page.

A panel that is not a rectangle

Select the panel: click an empty part of it with the selection tool, or click it with the frame tool. On the right, press Edit Shape. The panel shows a square at each corner; drag one and the border follows.

A panel in Edit Frame Shape with a square at each corner. Its lower left corner has been dragged up and to the right, so the left and bottom borders slant. On the right, Done and Cancel

Done keeps the new shape; Cancel puts the panel back as it was. What is drawn in the panel is cut off at its new border.

For art that should cross a border, such as a hand reaching out of a panel or a balloon over two panels, draw it on a layer that is outside the frames: + Add ▸ Add Page Layer — outside frames, under the layer list. A layer there covers the whole page and is not cut off by any panel. More in Layers.

On iPad, tap the panel with the frame tool, tap Edit Shape and drag a corner with the Pencil. A panel whose shape you changed also shows Reset Shape, which makes it a plain rectangle again.

A panel on iPad in Edit Frame Shape, a square at each corner. Its upper right corner has been dragged up and out to the corner of the page. On the right, Done and Cancel — On iPad: Edit Shape.

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