Move tool

Pick layers, move them, drill into groups and symbols, and build non-destructive boolean groups.

The Move tool (V) is where most editing starts: click a shape to pick it, drag to move it, band-select several at once. It changes what is selected and where it sits. For scaling and rotating, switch to the Transform tool.

Picking things#

A click picks the shape under the cursor and, if that layer can be edited, immediately starts a move. Hold Ctrl or Shift while clicking to add a shape to the selection or take it out again. Clicking empty canvas clears the selection and starts a rubber-band marquee; hold Ctrl or Shift and the marquee adds to what you already had.

The marquee needs to be at least three pixels across before it counts, so a slightly shaky click still reads as a click. It picks up every editable Shape layer whose bounding box the band touches on screen.

Layers that are locked or hidden can still be selected, but they will not move.

Auto Select, Sub Layer and Lock Children#

Sub Layer only appears while Auto Select is on. If you are working on a rigged character where every click keeps grabbing an eyelash, turn Sub Layer off: clicks then pick the whole character, and you can still reach inside by double-clicking.

Moving#

Dragging the body of a selection moves everything in it, and the cursor changes to the move shape. Layers linked together move as a set even if only one of them was picked. With Lock Children on, children receive the opposite offset, so they hold their place on the canvas while their parent moves under them.

The arrow keys nudge the selection by one document unit, or ten units with Shift held. Locked and hidden layers stay where they are, and a layer inside a selected group moves once, with its group. Nudging is ignored while the Timeline has focus or while a field is being edited.

With a Shape layer selected, the bar also shows its fill and stroke swatches and its stroke width, so a quick colour change needs no trip to the Properties panel. See Fill and stroke.

Snapping applies to these moves when the magnet is on: see Snapping.

Double-click to go deeper#

Double-clicking a Symbol opens it for editing in place. On anything else, and only when Auto Select is on and Sub Layer is off, a double-click drills one level further down the hierarchy toward the shape under the cursor and starts dragging it straight away. Double-click again to keep going down. Once you are inside a group, a single click stays at that depth and selects any other layer in the same group. A click outside the group goes back to picking top-level layers.

Light layers#

Double-clicking a Light layer goes into it. Inside, click a path to pick it, hold Shift to add more paths, and drag to move the picked paths whole. Double-click outside the light's paths, or press Esc, to come back out. See Light layers.

The transform box on pixels#

Shape layers get no scale handles under the Move tool. When a pixel selection is up on a Raster Cells or Pixel layer, though, the selection gets a transform box: a thin blue outline with white squares at the corners, white dots at the middle of each edge, and a rotation knob a short way above the top edge. The canvas edge is hidden while the box is up.

• Drag a corner to scale about the opposite corner; hold Shift to keep the proportions
• Drag an edge dot to scale in one direction about the opposite edge; hold Shift to scale both ways
• Drag the knob to rotate about the centre of the box; hold Shift to snap to 15 degree steps
• Drag inside the box to move the floating pixels; hold Shift to keep the move on one axis, or Alt to leave the original behind and move a copy
• Click outside to commit, or press Escape to cancel the transform, which leaves the selection where it was rather than discarding it

The Ctrl chords of the Transform tool work here too: Ctrl drags a corner or an edge freely, Ctrl+Shift on an edge skews, and Ctrl+Alt+Shift on a corner gives perspective. While the box is up the bar adds Anti-alias, Flip Horizontal, Flip Vertical, Apply and Cancel, and the W, H, Rotation and Skew X fields. See Transform tool.

The right-click menu#

Right-clicking selects what a left click there would select, the shape under the cursor or, with Sub Layer off, its top-level parent, and opens the canvas menu. If that is already selected, or sits inside a selected layer or group, the whole selection is kept, so the commands act on every selected layer. The menu offers:

• Group (Ctrl+G) and Ungroup (Ctrl+Shift+G)
• Link Layers, for two or more selected layers, and Unlink Layers for a layer already in a link set
• Edit Symbol, on a symbol instance you can edit, Convert to Symbol (F8), and Break Apart (Ctrl+B) on a single symbol instance
• Merge Down, which draws the selected layer into the one below it: see The Layer, Vector and Pixel menus
• Convert to Raster, Add Mesh Parent and Convert to Mesh, on a single selected layer
• Convert to Curves and Expand Stroke, on a single Shape layer: see Vector shapes

Right-clicking a key mark on the selected layer's motion path opens that key's menu instead: see Motion path. The Transform tool opens the same canvas menu.

Boolean groups#

Select two or more shapes and four buttons appear at the right of the Tool Options bar: Union, Subtract, Intersect and XOR. Each one wraps the shapes in a boolean group. The bottom shape is the base, and every shape above it takes the operation you clicked.

Nothing is destroyed. The original shapes stay inside the group as ordinary editable children. Select one of them and the four buttons set that piece's own operation, so one group can union two pieces and subtract a third. Select the group itself and the bar shows a single Boolean switch that turns the whole effect on or off. Blend Radius, Elasticity and Blend Colors are on the bar in both cases, and a selected piece adds its Blend Weight. See Boolean and liquid shapes.

If you want a single flattened result instead, use the Pathfinder buttons on the main toolbar, which replace the shapes with the combined outline. Below two selected shapes the four buttons are shown greyed out rather than hidden, so you can see that they exist and why they are not available yet.