Hi @jono sinclair, thank you for posting in the community! Our lines feature was recently updated and the method to add a line along the edge of an object has changed.

If you click and select the object that you’d like to add lines to, it will display the four typical line connection options (top/bottom/left/right). However, if you simply hover your cursor over the object, you will be able to drag lines from anywhere along the edges.

I’ve attached a GIF demonstrating the two different actions:

Apologies for the disruptions this may cause in your workflow. Please feel free to provide feedback on this feature as well as suggest new ideas here. All feedback and ideas are put in front of our Product Team for their consideration. 

For details on how feedback submissions are collected and considered, check out this community post!

Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions about this. Hope this helps!

For anyone reading this -

The behaviour they are showing with the lines is true on new docs, but not on our extended existing docs.

After deeper dives its due to us using a locked background layer which is basically a “box” acting as a border for the page.

All the “stuff” was on top layers.

When doing this, the incredibly annoying new “feature” of line drawing - which was completely non required in the first place, has now stuffed our ability to ammend or extend existing schematics for 4 years of work.

Our only options are to remove the border, which is not acceptable, or have the border on its own as a Master page and all the title block info as another layer then the drawings on a 3rd. Its a hack workaround simply because they don’t have a simple feature such as “PAGE BORDER”.

Bravo LucidChart.

Hey @jono sinclair, I’m Brendan, a UX Designer at Lucid. I can appreciate that these changes will take some getting used to. We are in the process of unifying interactions between our two products (Lucidspark and Lucidchart) and these line creation updates are part of that. I read through your posts. The solution provided to use master pages is one option, but I also thought of a couple of additional workarounds that might be easier.

First, you could use a rectangle container instead of a rectangle shape for your page border. Containers are meant to be background elements, so they shouldn’t interfere with your efforts to drag lines out from the edges of shapes the way they are currently on your documents. This is a good option if you want to have multiple boxes on one page.

Second, you could try turning off infinite canvas. You can do this in document settings. This is a good option if you only want one box per page and has additional benefits if you need to print or export at a specific size.

I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any further questions or feedback!

Hey @jono sinclair, I’m Brendan, a UX Designer at Lucid. I can appreciate that these changes will take some getting used to. We are in the process of unifying interactions between our two products (Lucidspark and Lucidchart) and these line creation updates are part of that. I read through your posts. The solution provided to use master pages is one option, but I also thought of a couple of additional workarounds that might be easier.

First, you could use a rectangle container instead of a rectangle shape for your page border. Containers are meant to be background elements, so they shouldn’t interfere with your efforts to drag lines out from the edges of shapes the way they are currently on your documents. This is a good option if you want to have multiple boxes on one page.

 

Second, you could try turning off infinite canvas. You can do this in document settings. This is a good option if you only want one box per page and has additional benefits if you need to print or export at a specific size.

 

I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any further questions or feedback!

Container is working and solved the issue. Many thanks

Hi Leianne, 

The GIF you posted is helpful. When I hover over a shape, I’m able to drag a line from the shape. But, when I select a shape, the shape appears, but the line does not. See snippets below.

I tried dragging and dropping a line and connecting two shapes. The line shows up, but then disappears. Seems like I’m using the feature correctly, but unable to add connecting lines. Please provide help in adding connecting lines.

@wdjohnson This looks like it may be a bug. Just to clarify, what you are doing is you are hovering along the edge of a shape, clicking and dragging to create a line. Then, when the dialog shows up to add a new shape, you select a shape and that shape is added, but the line disappears?

Hi bsmith,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I hover along the edge of the shape, then click and drag. A line is drawing and I can select a second shape. Then, when clicking in open space to the side of the line and new shape, the line disappears, but the new shape remains. If I draw a box around where the line was, it shows up but disappears again when I move the cursor to the side.

Thanks for the help.

Wes

@wdjohnson Hmm, I’m unable to replicate this on my end. Could you share the document with us? That will make it easier to troubleshoot.

OK, here’s the link. https://lucid.app/lucidchart/198c50f1-bb33-4674-91c7-fffad8cd8c3a/edit?viewport_loc=230%2C-317%2C2040%2C1099%2C0eqBfotfVGlV&invitationId=inv_f769b18e-563c-4b8e-9c59-178326a3f453. been adding lines between the two green squares on the left. If you drag a box around them you’ll see the lines I tried to add, but that disappeared. I started with a template and copied and pasted lines to make the flowchart seen in this link. But then wanted to add to the flowchart and that’s when the lines started disappearing. Thanks again, Wes

Okay, looking at this doc, it looks like the default line style somehow got set to transparent. Not sure how that happened, but here’s how you can fix it:

1. Add a line to your canvas
2. Change the color of the line to the color you want your lines to be moving forward
3. Right click the line
4. Select “set default style”
5. Now all lines you create will be that same color

I’ve already done that in the document you shared, but if you run into this issue again in the future, that’s the fix. Sorry about the confusion there!

Thanks Bsmith, 

That makes sense as I changed settings troubleshooting the “vanishing” line. This is my first time back using LucidChart after over 10 years, so I’m coming up the learning curve again. Love the software. 

Kind regards,

Wes