Editing your takeoff

Takeoff is rarely right first time. Everything here is reversible, and quantities update as you go.

Reshaping a region

Regions with editable outlines can be adjusted by dragging their points.

1. Select the region.
2. Drag a point to move it.
3. Release, and the quantity updates.

Use it for nudging a boundary that landed slightly off, rather than erasing and refilling. Add a point to introduce a corner, or remove one to straighten a run.

Reshaping is the right tool when the shape is nearly correct. If it is substantially wrong, erasing and refilling is usually faster.

Erasing

Removing part of a region is covered in full on the Eraser page. Briefly: quantities recalculate immediately, cutting a hole into an area raises its net perimeter because the hole edge becomes boundary, and erasing an entire region removes it rather than leaving a zero behind.

Combining regions

Several regions can be combined into one.

The combined region carries the total of what went into it, and the originals are replaced rather than kept alongside, so nothing is counted twice.

Combine when several separately filled areas are really one item for pricing, for example a paved area you filled in three passes because of obstructions.

Duplicating

Duplicating copies a region, including its shape and settings.

Caution

A duplicate placed on top of its original counts twice. This is intended, because a copy is treated as a second real item, which is what you want when you are duplicating to represent a second identical thing.

If you duplicate in order to move the copy elsewhere, move it. If you leave it sitting on the original, your total includes both.

Use duplication for genuinely repeated items with the same shape, such as identical planters or parking bays.

Undo and redo

There are two levels, and knowing the difference saves work.

Editor undo (Ctrl + Z, or Cmd + Z on Mac) steps back through your actions in order.

Group undo steps through operations on one work in progress group alone. Use it when you want to reverse something on one material without disturbing work you have done since on other materials. The buttons grey out when there is nothing left to step through.

That second one is more useful than it first sounds. If you erase badly on your paving, then take off planting, then notice the paving problem, group undo fixes the paving without touching the planting.

Deleting

A single item can be deleted from the panel or on the drawing.

A whole group can be deleted from the panel. Saved layers are committed work, so delete them deliberately.

Deleting reduces the total by exactly what was deleted.

Editing group settings

Edit Group changes a group’s name, colour or measurement settings.

Changing a setting that produces a derived quantity updates that quantity for the whole group at once. Change the depth on an area group and every region’s volume follows. Change the width on a linear group and A₁ follows.

Changing a group’s name or colour to match another group merges them, since a group is defined by name and colour together. That is the tidiest way to fix two groups that should have been one.

Hiding

Hiding takes a group or item out of the view and out of the totals.

Use it to check one material in isolation, or to produce an export covering part of the work. Unhide everything before issuing anything, since a hidden group is silently missing from exports.

What to reach for

Situation	Do this
Boundary slightly off	Reshape by dragging points
Fill grabbed a bit too much	Erase the excess
Fill grabbed far too much	Delete and refill with a lower tolerance
Several areas should be one item	Combine them
Two groups should have been one	Rename one to match the other
Wrong depth or width on a group	Edit Group, and every quantity follows
Just made a mistake	Undo
Made a mistake a while ago on one material	Group undo on that group