Mouse, Selection and Movement

The Mapping window is a pixel field on which fixtures are arranged and effects play. Almost everything here is done with the mouse: navigating the field, selecting fixtures, dragging, scaling and rotating. What exactly a click does depends on the active tool on the toolbar; this article describes the Select and Move mode — the main tool for working with fixtures — and the general navigation that always works.

Navigating the Field

Mouse wheel — zoom. By default zooming is centered on the point under the cursor: whatever you're looking at stays in place. Holding Ctrl zooms relative to the center of the window. You can swap these two modes with the Zoom to Cursor checkbox in the Miscellaneous section of the program settings window (Ctrl+P, see Settings).
Holding the wheel (middle button) — panning: drag the field in any direction. Works with any active tool. The Hand tool does the same thing with the left button.
Z — fit the field to the window and center it. A quick way to get back "home" if you've zoomed or panned far away.
Ctrl+F — stretch the selected layout to fill the entire work area.
The cursor coordinates in field pixels and the current zoom level are shown in the corner of the window; they are enabled by the menu items View → 2D Mapping → Coordinates and Zoom.

Selecting Fixtures

Select the Select and Move tool. Then:

Clicking a fixture selects it, clearing the previous selection. You can click any pixel of a spline — the whole spline will be selected.
Shift+click or Ctrl+click adds a fixture to the current selection without clearing it. This lets you build up any set of fixtures in any order.
Marquee: click on empty space and drag out a rectangle — all fixtures it touches by even a single pixel will be selected. With Shift or Ctrl the marquee adds to the selection, without them it replaces it.
Clicking on empty space without any modifier keys clears the selection.
Delete or Backspace removes the selected fixtures.

The selection is shared with the Fixtures window: a fixture selected on the field is highlighted in the list of fixtures and ports, and one selected in the list is highlighted on the field. This is handy when there are many fixtures and they're hard to tell apart on the field: click the one you need in the list, and a selection box will appear on the field.

The mouse only picks up visible fixtures. A fixture whose Visibility checkbox is unchecked in the Properties window, as well as fixtures on hidden ports and devices, cannot be selected by clicking — they are selected from the list in the Fixtures window instead. And while the Fixtures checkbox on the toolbar is unchecked, the mouse doesn't select anything on the field at all: this way fixtures can't be moved by accident while you're looking at effects.

Moving

Drag a selected fixture (or any point inside the selection box) with the left button — all selected fixtures move together. While the button is held, the fixtures are drawn in their new location; release it to fix the position.
Shift while dragging constrains movement to one axis: fixtures move strictly horizontally or strictly vertically, depending on which direction you moved the mouse more.
Ctrl while dragging creates a copy: the original fixtures stay in place, and a duplicate with the same settings is placed at the new position. The copies appear as soon as you move the mouse, and are immediately selected.
Arrow keys move the selection by 1 pixel, Shift+arrow keys — by 10.
With the Snap to Grid toggle enabled on the toolbar, movement happens in whole pixels, and fixtures always land exactly on the pixel grid cells.

Any move can be undone with Ctrl+Z and redone with Ctrl+Y.

Selection Box: Scaling and Rotation

A rectangular box with green square handles is drawn around the selected fixtures; the handle under the cursor is highlighted in red.

Box corners — scaling. Drag a corner: the opposite corner stays in place, and the fixtures stretch or shrink to follow the box. With Shift the proportions are preserved, with Alt scaling happens from the center of the box instead of the opposite corner, with Ctrl the corner moves along only one axis. A corner cannot be dragged past the opposite one — the box won't collapse below one pixel. For a spline lying strictly horizontally or vertically, scaling is only possible along its line: its other dimension is zero.
Rotation handle — a square to the right of the box, connected to its center by a gray line; the current angle is shown next to it. Drag the handle — the selection rotates around the center of the box following the cursor. With the Rotation Snap toggle enabled, the angle changes in steps (15° by default, the step size is set on the toolbar); with it disabled, rotation is free, with a precision of hundredths of a degree.
The square in the center — another move handle: it's convenient for dragging a tight group without risking grabbing an individual fixture. Shift constrains movement to one axis here too, and Ctrl immediately creates a duplicate of the selection.
If exactly one single fixture is selected, there are no corners or rotation handle — only the central square remains: scaling and rotating a single point makes no sense.

Scaling and rotation are also commands: Ctrl+Z puts the fixtures back.

Editing a Spline

A spline is a polyline, and its vertices can be edited individually. You can enter editing mode in two ways: double-clicking the spline, or the Edit Spline button on the toolbar (available when a spline is selected). Vertices are shown as green squares; selected ones are filled red.

Clicking a point selects it; Shift or Ctrl add points to the selection; a marquee selects several at once.
Dragging selected points moves them; with Shift — along one axis.
Clicking near the line between vertices adds a new vertex at that spot.
If exactly one endpoint is selected, clicking on empty space extends the spline: a new vertex is added before the first point or after the last one. Where it will land is shown by a gray line stretching from the endpoint to follow the cursor.
Delete or Backspace removes the selected points. A spline can never have fewer than two vertices — the last two cannot be deleted.
Right-click opens a menu with the Remove Redundant Points command — it removes vertices that duplicate their neighbors or don't change the direction of the line.
Enter or Esc finish editing and return to the Select and Move tool; switching to another tool does too.

If several splines are selected, the vertices of all of them are available in editing mode — there's no need to switch between splines. After editing the vertices, the spline's pixels are redistributed along the new shape of the line.

Drawing a New Spline

The Add Spline tool on the toolbar:

The first click places the starting point.
Each subsequent click adds a vertex; between clicks the end of the line follows the cursor.
Shift (or Ctrl) aligns the new vertex with the previous one horizontally or vertically if the deviation is less than 5 pixels — this produces straight segments.
Enter finishes the spline. At least two vertices are needed, otherwise there's nothing to finish.
Esc erases the line in progress; pressing Esc again exits the tool back to "Select and Move".

The finished spline is immediately selected, and it can be moved, scaled and rotated as described above. If Auto-Patch is enabled on the toolbar, the spline also receives a port with an address — see Toolbar.

Mapping Window Hotkeys

Keys	Action
Z	Fit the field to the window and center it
Ctrl + wheel	Toggle the zoom pivot point (cursor / window center)
Ctrl+F	Stretch the selected layout to fill the entire work area
Delete, Backspace	Delete the selection
Ctrl+D	Duplicate the selection
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V	Copy / paste
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y	Undo / redo action
Arrow keys, Shift+arrow keys	Move the selection by 1 / 10 pixels
Space	Play / pause the current composition

The full list of keyboard shortcuts, including the timeline and 3D view, is in the Help → Hotkeys window.