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Creating and editing

Creating and editing

blueprint:josh/creating-a-stratum

From the shape

Right-click a shape on any diagram in the blueprint and choose Add Stratum…. The stratum is created and anchored to that shape as soon as you choose it, so the modal opens on a stratum that already exists. Close it without typing and the stratum stays; fill in the content later if you would rather keep drawing.

This is the normal path. It is available in step 1 of the editor as well as step 2, so you can write detail while the diagram is still taking shape.

Once a shape carries a stratum, the same menu reads Edit Stratum… and the shape is marked on the canvas.

From the Resources & Strata step

Step 2 lists every stratum in the blueprint. Add Stratum here creates one that is not yet bound to anything; use the link picker to point it at a shape afterwards.

Use it when you are writing several strata in one sitting and binding them later, or when the detail exists before the drawing does.

From a diagram embedded in prose

A diagram inside a Rich Text tab has its own kebab menu with Add Stratum…. Strata bound to an embedded diagram behave exactly like those on a tab canvas.

Inside the editor

A stratum has a name, and one or more tabs. The name is what readers see on the hover preview and in the window's title bar, so write it as a label rather than a sentence.

Give the stratum the same name as the shape unless there is a reason not to. A reader who clicks "Order queue" expects a window titled "Order queue".

The stratum modal: icon, name and kind on one row, the anchor below it with Change, Remove and + Add, then the tab strip

Add a tab with Add tab and choose its kind. Reorder tabs by dragging; the first is what opens by default.

The Anchor row shows what the stratum is attached to. Change repoints it, Remove detaches it, and + Add anchors the same stratum to another shape, for detail that belongs to two places on a drawing.

Deleting

Deleting a stratum that something links to leaves those links dangling, and the reader sees them as missing. The delete confirmation lists the referrers first: inline stratum: links, linked callouts, and any stratum whose diagram link points inside the one you are removing. Read that list before confirming.