Pictures on a folio

A folio can carry pictures alongside the drawing: a photo of the cabinet, a supplier's logo, a screenshot of an HMI page. QElectroTech copies the picture into the project file, so the project stays complete when it is moved or sent on; nothing points back to the file you picked.

This page covers inserting a picture, the handles, the properties panel, the picture's own right-click menu, and what it costs in the saved file.

1. Inserting a picture

Click Ajouter une image (Add a picture) on the Ajouter (Add) toolbar.
Pick a file: PNG, JPEG, BMP or SVG.
Click on the folio where the picture should go.

A picture is an ordinary folio item: it moves, copies, pastes, snaps to the folio grid and undoes like everything else.

2. Resizing, rotating and skewing with the handles

A selected picture shows handles, in one of two modes. Click the selected picture to switch between them; the tooltip names the mode the next click gives.

Mode	Drag	Modifier
Resize	a corner or an edge	Shift keeps the proportions, Ctrl resizes from the centre
Rotate / skew	a corner to rotate, an edge to skew	Shift snaps to 15° steps
Rotate / skew	the red dot	moves the centre of rotation

While the pointer is over a selected picture, the status bar lists the same gestures for the current mode.

3. The properties panel

Select a picture and the Propriétés de la sélection (Selection properties) panel shows:

Field	Does
Largeur / Hauteur (Width / Height)	size as a percentage of the source image. The lock between them keeps the proportions; click it to size each on its own
Restaurer les proportions	makes the height percentage match the width again, undoing a stretch
Angle	rotation, in degrees
Inclinaison X / Inclinaison Y (Skew X / Y)	skew, in degrees
Libellé (Label)	a caption under the picture — see below
Verrouiller la position (Lock position)	stops the picture from being moved

The label

Text typed in Libellé is drawn centred under the picture. It belongs to the picture: it moves, copies, rotates and prints with it, and clicking the label selects the picture. It stays at normal folio text size however large or small the picture is scaled, using the font set for folio texts in the preferences. Leave the field empty to remove the label.

Before the label existed, the only way to caption a picture was a separate free text, which had to be selected together with the picture every time either was moved.

There is no per-label font, colour or position.

Right-click a picture for its own commands, above the usual folio ones:

Command	Does
Remplacer l'image… (Replace picture)	swaps in another file, keeping position, scale and rotation; any crop or transparent colours are cleared
Enregistrer l'image sous… (Save picture as)	writes the picture as it looks on the folio, crop and transparency applied, to PNG, JPEG, BMP or SVG
Enregistrer l'image d'origine sous… (Save original picture as)	writes the picture as it was inserted, before any crop or transparency
Couleur transparente… (Transparent colour)	picks one or more colours to make see-through, each with a tolerance — for a logo on a white background, say
Rogner… (Crop)	keeps only a rectangle of the picture
Miroir horizontal / Miroir vertical	flips the picture
Restaurer les proportions	as in the properties panel

Crop and transparency do not destroy the original: it stays in the project, so either can be changed again later, and Enregistrer l'image d'origine sous… gets it back. JPEG and BMP cannot hold transparency; QElectroTech warns before saving a see-through picture to one of them.

5. In the project file

Each picture is an <image> element in its folio's <images> block (see Project XML):

Part	Holds
text content	the picture as displayed, PNG, base64-encoded
`x`, `y`, `z`	position and stacking order
`rotation`, `size`	angle and scale, as older versions read them
`is_movable`	`0` when the position is locked
`uuid`	the picture's permanent id
`label`	the label, only when one is set
`<transform>`	separate X/Y scale, skew and rotation centre, only when needed
`<crop>`, `<transparent_colors>`	the crop rectangle and keyed colours, only when used
`<image_base>`	the untouched original, only when the picture is cropped or keyed

Things that follow from this:

Pictures are always stored as PNG. A JPEG photo becomes a PNG inside the project, which is often several times larger than the JPEG was. Scale a large photo down before inserting it if file size matters.
A cropped or keyed picture is stored twice, displayed and original.
Older versions open these projects. They read the picture, position, rotation and scale, and ignore the label, the uuid and the rest; saving from an older version drops them.
Saving is quick even with many pictures. Each picture's PNG is encoded once and reused on every later save until the picture changes.

A picture also appears in the project database's image table and in drawing_item_view — see The project database.

6. Limitations

Limitation	Detail
DXF export	pictures become outline boxes: see DXF import & export
Label styling	the label uses the folio text font; no per-label font, colour or position
No link to the source file	changing the file on disk does not update the project; use Remplacer l'image…