App settings — What can I configure?

Where do I find the app settings?

In the Gallery, tap the gear icon in the top bar. This is a different screen from the small gear you see inside a project — that one is per-project settings. Anything in this sheet applies to the whole app, across every project.

What does “Appearance” control?

A System / Light / Dark segmented picker. “System” follows your iPad’s own appearance setting; the other two pin StitchPencil to one look regardless of the system setting.

Under it sits Accent color: a row of six — orange, indigo, teal, pink, green, graphite. Buttons, frames, highlights and the marks on the canvas all follow the one you pick. Orange is what ships and is unchanged by the setting existing. The row is curated rather than a free color picker on purpose: every tone is checked against the warm light chrome and the dark one, so no choice can leave you with a label you cannot read.

What does “Draw with finger” do?

It’s off by default — with it off, only the Apple Pencil draws, and a finger only pans/zooms/selects. This avoids accidental strokes from your palm resting on the screen. If you try to draw with a finger while it’s off, StitchPencil shows a one-time hint offering to turn the option on, so it’s discoverable without reading the manual.

What does the “Tool bar side” setting do?

Switches the tool rail — and every panel that docks next to it — between the left and right edge of the screen, for right- or left-handed use. You don’t have to come here to change it: there’s also a small ⇄ chip at the very bottom of the tool rail itself that does the same thing without leaving the editor. See Gestures for more on that shortcut.

What does “Add new objects at the end” do?

It decides where a freshly drawn object lands in the layer list. Off — the default — inserts it directly after the layer you have selected, so it sews next: the way a layer-based drawing app behaves. On puts every new object at the end of the list, where it sews last and covers everything under it. With nothing selected, both settings append.

Two things are worth knowing with it off. The object you just drew becomes the reference for the next one, so several strokes in a row stay together instead of scattering. And an object inserted in the middle can be covered by something that sews later — that is correct behaviour, not a glitch, and the Layers panel shows you exactly where it sits.

What is “Screen recording” for?

It draws every touch on top of the app, so a recording shows what your hand did. A capture card records the screen, and the screen says nothing about the hand: without this, a video of drawing is a video of shapes appearing by themselves, and nobody watching can tell a pencil stroke from a two-finger pan.

The Apple Pencil appears as a small purple point that grows with pressure — which is worth seeing, because pressure is what sets a satin column’s width while you draw. A finger appears as a wider teal circle. Both leave a short trail behind them, so a swipe reads as a swipe and a tap as a tap.

Hold last input sets how long a contact stays on screen after you lift, from 0.2 to 5 seconds, before it fades. A tap lasts a few frames; without the hold it is gone before the viewer has found it.

It is off by default, purely a display aid, and changes nothing about your design or the exported file.

What is the “Fit fills under satin borders” assistant?

When it’s on, drawing a fill underneath a closed satin border you already drew automatically snaps the fill’s edge to sit just inside that border — the two-step “draw satin outline, then draw a fill that matches it” workflow becomes one step. Turn it off if you’d rather size fills manually.

What does “Empty trash after 30 days” do?

Deleted projects sit in a trash area rather than disappearing immediately. With this on (the default), StitchPencil clears anything older than 30 days automatically the next time it starts. Turn it off if you want deleted projects to stay recoverable indefinitely.

What’s under “About”?

Read-only version and build-date information — handy to have on hand if you’re reporting a bug during the beta.

What does “Factory reset” do, and is it safe?

It’s a destructive action, deliberately placed behind two confirmation layers so it’s hard to trigger by accident:

1. Tapping Factory reset… opens a dialog with two distinct options:
   • Reset, keep projects — restores every app-wide setting (Stitch presets, HUD layout, color palettes, all the toggles above) to their defaults, but leaves your saved projects untouched.
   • Reset AND delete all projects… — the same reset, plus every project in the Gallery. This option asks for a second, separate confirmation before it does anything.

If you only want a clean slate for settings — say, to get back the original built-in Stitch presets — the first option is what you want. The second is genuinely permanent; there’s no undo once you confirm it.