You can keep these default layers, or remove them and create your own. Templates have default layers that shapes are assigned to when you drop the shape on the page. Turn Color on to see which shapes are included in that layer. Turn Glue on or off.Ĭolor – Applies the assigned color to all shapes on a layer. Glue – Ensures that connectors remain attached to shapes. Snap – Ensures that shapes align with a grid or other shapes in the drawing. Lock – Prevent or allow changes to the shapes. Print – Include or exclude a layer when the diagram is printed.Īctive – Automatically assign shapes to active layers when the shapes are added to the diagram. You can group a related set of shapes in a layer, which allows you to change various properties of all the layer members at once. You can also follow him on Twitter.In Visio, layers let you organize the shapes in a drawing. If you'd like to support Talon Zane's work in the future, you can do so on his Patreon. Talon Zane is also a budding game developer. Remember that time they were going to take it away? That made me real sad and I didn't like it.

Thank you Talon Zane, for ensuring that ms paint, a reliable and stalwart program of the windows ecosystem which I hope will never go away nor become overcomplicated and annoying. 'mspaintcompanion may not be as functionally reliable as expected,' warns Zane, 'Severe jank will be fixed whenever possible.' You can put a sketch on one layer and create the final piece over it, or trace a reference image-among many, many other uses.

You can perfect one part of a piece of art, then move to others without risking disruption to your already-completed bits. Why are layers important? Well, they're a standard of every major graphic design program for the last 20 years because they're just so useful. 'That's right, you can now pile on as many layers as you need to perfect your silly little doodles,' says Zane, 'no longer will you be confined to creating simple, one-layered monstrosities!' A lovely thing for myself, as I am a simple, one-layered monstrosity and need all the uniqueness I can get.Īt this point there is someone reading this who does not know why layers are important. It's a beautiful concept as an update to the 38 year old app, and more than anything just kind of an obvious upgrade that I think we all agree is confusing on Microsoft's part. The mod is a creation of 17-year-old game developer Talon Zane, and is available along with its source code for free.

How to use layers in ms paint