Table of Contents

Mouse modifiers: Shift, Ctrl and Alt while you drag

1. The rule that explains half the page: Ctrl means "ignore the grid"
2. Moving things
3. Drawing a shape
4. Reshaping: resize, rotate, skew
5. Selecting
6. Nudging with the arrow keys
7. View and navigation
8. Cancelling something you started
9. In the element editor
10. Things that catch people out
See also

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Mouse modifiers: Shift, Ctrl and Alt while you drag

Holding a key while you drag changes what the drag does — it constrains a shape to a square, frees an item from the grid, resizes from the centre, snaps a rotation to 15°, or moves an element's label instead of the element.

Almost none of this is visible in the interface. Two of them appear in the status bar while you are already dragging; the rest are not written down anywhere. This page is the list.

Keyboard-only control is the companion page and covers the opposite problem — driving QElectroTech without a mouse at all.

1. The rule that explains half the page: Ctrl means "ignore the grid"

Ctrl is not handled separately by each tool. It is built into the grid function itself, so it works anywhere a position is snapped: placing an element, drawing a shape, dragging an item, moving a handle.

Held down, positions round to the nearest pixel instead of the nearest grid square. It is fine positioning, not unlimited freedom — you still land on whole coordinates.

Two things follow that are easy to trip over:

Ctrl also toggles selection when you click an item. A Ctrl+click adds or removes that item from the selection; Ctrl held during a drag frees it from the grid. Same key, two jobs, decided by whether you moved.
Ctrl+Shift is not available as a modifier of your own. The folio view reserves that combination for its own mode switch, so a Ctrl+Shift drag does not behave like "Ctrl and Shift at once" everywhere.

2. Moving things

You drag	Plain	With a modifier
An element, image or shape	snaps to the grid	Ctrl — fine positioning
A free text field	snaps to the grid	Ctrl — fine positioning
A conductor's text	snaps to the grid	Ctrl — fine positioning
An element's own text (label, reference, information field)	moves the whole element	Shift — moves the text alone, leaving the element where it is
A group of element texts	snaps to the grid	Ctrl — fine positioning

The Shift row is the one people ask about. Clicking an element's label and dragging moves the element, because the label hands the event to its parent. Hold Shift as you press, and the label moves on its own.

Note. An element's text is the one thing on the folio that does not snap to the grid when you drag it — it moves in single units instead. That is being changed in PR #927; until it is merged, expect labels to land off-grid.

3. Drawing a shape

While dragging out a rectangle or an ellipse:

Hold	Result
nothing	corner to corner, snapped to the grid
Shift	a perfect square or circle — the longer side wins
Ctrl	drawn from the centre outwards, and off the grid
Ctrl+Shift	a centred square or circle

Shift has no effect on lines, polygons or paths — only on rectangles and ellipses.

Whether the shape is centre-anchored is decided at the first click, not re-checked while you drag. Letting go of Ctrl halfway through does not snap the shape back to corner-anchored; that is deliberate, so a tired hand does not undo a decision you already made.

4. Reshaping: resize, rotate, skew

Select a shape or an image and drag one of its handles.

Handle	Hold	Result
Resize	Ctrl	resize symmetrically about the centre instead of the opposite corner
Resize	Shift	keep the proportions — for an image, its original aspect ratio, not a forced square
Resize corner (shapes)	Alt	detach that corner, turning a rectangle or ellipse into a polygon you can reshape freely. Edge handles ignore Alt
Rotate	Shift	snap the angle to 15° steps
Skew	Shift	snap the skew to 15° steps
Arc start/end	Shift	snap the arc angle to 15° steps
Path node (node-edit mode)	Alt	give the node symmetric curve handles
Curve handle	Alt	break the symmetry, making it a corner instead of mirroring the opposite handle

Ctrl frees handle dragging from the grid here as well, as everywhere else.

5. Selecting

Action	Result
Ctrl+click an item or conductor	add it to, or remove it from, the selection
Drag on empty space	rubber-band select everything inside, including element texts
Tab / Shift+Tab	step to the next / previous item without a mouse

6. Nudging with the arrow keys

With something selected and no text being edited:

Keys	Moves by
Arrows	the movement grid — 10 units by default
Alt+arrows	the fine grid — 1 unit by default
Ctrl+arrows	nothing moves; adjusts the alignment of a selected text group

Both grids are configurable in Preferences → General, separately from the grid the mouse snaps to.

Action	Result
Ctrl+mouse wheel	zoom in and out (trackpad/gesture mode)
Ctrl++ / Ctrl+−	zoom in and out
Ctrl+wheel over the folio tabs	switch folio

8. Cancelling something you started

Once you have picked a tool — an element, a shape, a template, a paste — a placement is in progress and follows your pointer until you finish it.

Key	Result
Left click	place it
Right click	cancel. The folio's own context menu is suppressed while a placement runs, which is why right-click cancels rather than opening a menu
Escape	cancel, from the moment the placement starts

The text tool is the exception: neither Escape nor right-click cancels it, so the next click drops a text field you may not want. Fixed in PR #928; until then, the way out is to pick a different tool.

9. In the element editor

The element editor follows the same Ctrl = ignore the grid rule when dragging parts, text and handles, and the same Shift = 15° steps rule when rotating. It keeps its own grid settings, separate from the diagram's.

10. Things that catch people out

Ctrl+click versus Ctrl+drag do different jobs, as above.
Ctrl+Shift is reserved by the folio view; do not expect it to combine freely.
Shift on an element's text is the only way to move a label without its element — there is no menu item for it.
Alt on a shape's corner is destructive in a useful way: it converts the rectangle or ellipse into a polygon, and that conversion is a real change to the item, not a temporary view.