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How to create shape/text that is hidden or shadowed out until cursor is run over it?

  • 11 April 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 49 views

Notes are a good example of this because a small discrete icon is present to show the viewer that another dimension or additional information at least is attached to some given shape. However the problem there is the format of the notes box (the shape cannot be changed nor font size etc) which is a little inconsistent aesthetically with the rest of the Lucid-chart experience in my opinion and indeed if this is the only option as regards said functionality.

With that said is there a way to create shapes or text that can by default be shadowed out (for example) and thus appear as "background" shapes or texts that transform to "foreground" when the cursor is directed to or over them; selected etc.? Such would be an amazing feature in my opinion.

Layers should seem to do such but I can't see how that feature works since the added items in any given layer are either visible or invisible when to the main layer without any means to an unknown viewer that they are there in the first place (meaning that the Layers experience is much less interactive and intuitive since to view them if they are hidden requires that the viewer understand the dock and so forth and actually make them manually visible just to see them if I understand such correctly?).  

Thank you

Comments

Justin C102

That would be a great functionality indeed come to think of it. Like two mirrors that face one another multiple layers could be shadowed out progressively or incrementally and when clicked on brought to the foreground. Perhaps an infinite number of layers would be pointless but that two or three or more be set up in such a way seems self-evidently practical and efficient for numerous reasons. I'd love to be able to fit so much into an otherwise confined space without at the same time compromising the smooth appeal that the diagram format presents. Lots of diagrams merely introduce that which requires a great deal of language if to be explained completely or thoroughly however in a diagram format so much information simply defeats the purpose of having a diagram. Yet if a third dimension (depth) were introduced it'd make it so that the user could simply hover their cursor over the opaque shape or text and as a result the two layers swap such that the foreground becomes the background and vice versa. It's basically the same principle that the brain makes use of in folding in on itself so many times over: because it is confined to a given space the only way it can grow or be bigger in the same area is by folding in on itself. Here too it'd seem aesthetically consistent and intuitively smart for the viewer. Mere color coding could help the user to distinguish between the multiple layers as could the degree of shadowing of course. 

Carson G

Hi Justin

Thanks for posting! I hope I'm responding effectively to your questions. What I would recommend is to place a hotspot on a shape and to set the functionality of that hotspot to toggle layers. This would allow you to maintain an additional process that would only appear when clicked (see gif). 

 

Please let me know if you have additional questions about this!

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