The editor at a glance — What does everything do?

The editor has four zones: a top bar, a tool rail on the side, the canvas in the middle, and a floating zoom / display bar along the bottom. Which side the rail sits on depends on your handedness setting — everything below reads the same either way.

What’s in the top bar?

From left to right:

• Grid icon — back to the Gallery
• Project title — tap it to rename the project
• Undo / Redo arrows
• Status chip — a one-line summary (stitch count · color count · design size). If something blocks export (an invalid object, an out-of-hoop shape), the chip becomes tappable and shows a “How to fix” alert — see Troubleshooting
• Layers — opens the layers/sequence panel
• Color — the current drawing color swatch; tap to open the color inspector
• Export — the export menu
• Settings (gear icon) — opens Project Settings for this project (hoop size, units, grid, fabric…). This is a different settings screen from the app-wide one in the Gallery.

What’s on the tool rail?

• Run / Satin / Fill — three quick-access tiles. Each remembers the last preset you used for that stitch kind. Tapping the tile that’s already active opens the Stitch Library popover instead of just re-selecting it — see Stitch presets & the HUD.
• Points — precision node-by-node digitizing, see Points & nodes
• Text — the lettering tool, see Shapes & text
• Shapes — curated starter shapes, same page as above
• Select — the arrange/transform tool, see Select & transform
• ⇄ at the very bottom — flips the whole rail (and every panel that docks beside it) to the other side. See Gestures for the full explanation.

What’s the floating bar at the bottom of the canvas?

Two rows:

• Display segment — Relief / Lines is an exclusive pair (Relief renders a realistic thread look; Lines is the flat schematic view used for digitizing). Direction and Paths are independent overlay toggles that show stitch direction arrows and machine travel paths. These affect the canvas preview only, never the exported file.
• Zoom pill — − / +, a live percentage, Fit (frames the current design, or the whole hoop if it’s empty), and a viewfinder icon that always frames the entire hoop regardless of what’s selected.

What does the ruler and grid show?

The ruler along the top and left edges is in millimeters or inches depending on your project’s unit setting. The origin (0) is the hoop’s center — StitchPencil’s whole coordinate system is centered on the hoop, not its top-left corner, which matters if you’re ever reading raw coordinates off a design.