Take the in-app tutorial
Use the Tutorial button when you would rather be shown than read. It runs in the real editor, on your own screen: either a guided build of a whole design that ends with a file for your machine, or a short demonstration of one task. New in v1.3.2.
The Tutorial button opens a menu with two things in it:
- Introductory tutorial: you digitize a coffee cup, from the picture to the file for your machine, in 19 steps. About 20 minutes.
- How to: sixteen short demonstrations that each show one thing, played out on your own screen.
The line-art and pixel editors have a Tutorial button of their own, and Bobby can play a How-to for you when you ask it how to do something.
Where to find it
- In the editor: the Tutorial button in the header, to the left of Publish. "Build a coffee cup step by step, or watch how to do one thing."
- On the home screen: the Tutorial button at the top right, beside your avatar. It starts the tutorial in a new design, so your current work is not touched. If that work has unsaved changes, Boldbobbin asks about them first.
- From the getting-started checklist: once all eight steps are done, its panel's Open the tutorial button opens it. See Create your first design.
It works the same on the desktop app and on the web.
The introductory tutorial has you save the cup to your cloud along the way, so it needs you to be signed in. Signed out, its button reads Sign in to start, and the sign-in dialog says "Sign in or create a free account to start the tutorial." The menu comes back once you are in. A free account is enough. See Signing in.
The How-tos need no account.
The introductory tutorial
The intro screen, Stitch this coffee cup, lists the four parts and links to the written guide on the website. Let's go starts it.
The cup is built in four parts, each one opened by a short card that says what it is about (Part 1 of 4, and so on; Got it! to carry on):
| Part | Steps | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Set up | 3 | Place the cup picture, zoom in on it, and pick the three threads the cup uses, each a different way: by typing its color code, from a thread chart, and with the eyedropper. |
| Trace | 6 | Trace the body as a tatami fill with the Pen, the rim, saucer, and handle as satin columns, and the steam as single stitches. Then save the cup to your cloud. |
| Plan the path | 7 | Look at the stitches, then decide how the machine gets from one part to the next: reorder parts in Layers, join the rim to the handle, add a stitched path down to the saucer, start the saucer where that path ends, and trim between the wisps of steam. |
| Sew | 3 | See it in thread (skipped where Realistic mode is not available), watch it sew, and export a file for your machine. |
When the path part starts, a What the lines mean legend explains the three kinds of line you see between parts: a jump (the thread is carried across, uncut, for you to cut by hand), a trim (the machine cuts the thread, then moves on), and sewn across (the needle stitches straight on to the next shape).
How it guides you
- One thing at a time. The control to use next is ringed, numbered, and captioned on the real interface, not on a picture of it.
- Dots on the picture. While you trace, numbered dots show where to click, and only the next dot takes a click: anywhere else, the card says "Not there. Click dot 4". Your clicks snap onto the dots, so the shape comes out right.
- Drag arrows show where to drop when a step asks you to drag a point.
- The cup picture is placed locked, so a stray click passes through it to the canvas. You can unlock it in the Properties panel.
- You cannot skip ahead by accident. The forward arrow stays locked until the step is done ("Finish this step first, or press Do it for me"). Do it for me does the step for you, and becomes Fix it for me when the part is there but not right.
- Two steps can be skipped on purpose: saving to the cloud ("I don't want to save, skip") and exporting ("I don't want to export for now"). If your cloud is full, the save step says so and points to Pro, without making it a condition of carrying on.
The header button reads Tutorial mode · 4/19 while you are in it, so you can always see where you are.
If something goes wrong
- Start over, on the card, appears once there is something to clear. On a drawing step it removes what was not traced right; on any other step it puts the design back as it was when you arrived.
- If you undo or delete a part an earlier step made, the card notices ("Step 5 (Satin rim) needs to be done again.") and offers the way back: Undo (or Redo, if Ctrl/Cmd+Z caused it), Put it back, or Redo from step 5, which restores the design as it was when that step began.
Leaving and coming back
- Leaving the cup (a new design, a template, opening another design, going Home, opening your cloud designs) asks first: Leave the tutorial? Your progress is kept, and Tutorial picks up where you left off.
- After a restart, the card starts hidden. Open Tutorial to resume.
- Quitting is different. The card's × asks "Are you sure you want to quit tutorial mode?", and Quit tutorial mode ends the run: the progress is forgotten and the next start is a fresh one. Your design itself is left as it is.
While a run is in progress, the menu also offers End tutorial and Start over.
At the end, Your cup is ready to stitch! links to ideas for what to try next.
How to
The How to tiles each show one task, in this order:
Tour of the app, Trace a shape, Satin column, Place stitches, Draw a rectangle, Edit threads, Change the stitch type, Resize a shape, Change a shape's thread, Add text, Zoom in, Move around, See the stitches, Change the order, Sewing animation, and Export.
The four new How-tos
New in v1.4.0, four How-tos show the everyday changes to a shape, with the real controls:
| How-to | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Change the stitch type | On a selected shape: Satin, then Inner, a look in the Stitch view, then Tatami. |
| Resize a shape | The shape's size in Properties: it opens Transform and types a width of 40 mm. The stitches follow the new size. |
| Change a shape's thread | Your design's threads on the bottom bar, and a click on one to sew the selected shape in it. |
| Add text | Text in the tool rail opens the Add text dialog. It types "ABC", points at Add, and closes it with Cancel. |
The first three work on an example of their own: a blue rectangle named Example in Layers, made and selected for the run, so none of your shapes is changed. For now, these four play in English in every language.
Watching a How-to
A How-to moves the real cursor over the real controls, with a caption beside each gesture. Each caption says where you are, for example "3/5". Play automatically, beside the heading, decides how it moves:
- On (the default, and remembered): it plays through by itself.
- Off: it waits under each caption for Next (Got it! on the last one).
The caption's × (Stop) ends it.
The player bar, under the canvas in the middle, works like a video player's (new in v1.3.3). It moves to the top of the canvas while a gesture is under it.
- Pause holds the run mid-gesture, and Play carries on. Play also plays through a How-to that was waiting for Next.
- Previous step and Next step go one step back or forward.
- A dot per step ("Step 3 of 5") goes straight to that step.
Keys are shown as your keyboard shows them: ⌘Z on a Mac, Ctrl+Z elsewhere, in the captions and on the keycaps. New in v1.3.3.
A How-to that needs the Properties panel brings it forward first, even when it was closed or behind another tab. If a control is not on screen, the How-to skips that step.
- In the editor, click Tutorial.
- Turn Play automatically off.
- Click Satin column, read each caption, and click Next when you are ready for the next gesture.
- When it ends, your design is back as it was. Draw your own column with what you saw.
How-tos work on the open design, for real. Tour of the app draws a rectangle and a leaf, changes their stitches and threads, and reorders them in Layers; Change the order adds a blue rectangle and a red circle; Sewing animation draws a small heart if the design is empty; three of the new How-tos work on an Example rectangle.
As of v1.4.0, when the How-to ends, or you stop it, your design is exactly as you left it: its example shapes are gone, its steps are not left in your undo history, and nothing it did is autosaved, to your computer or your cloud. Your view, tool, and selection come back too. If you change the design yourself while it plays, the How-to takes away only its own shapes and steps, and your change stays and saves as usual. How-tos are only offered in the editor.
In the line-art and pixel editors
New in v1.3.3, the line-art editor and the pixel editor each have their own Tutorial button in their header, near Done. It opens a menu with a tour of that editor and short How-tos, played with the same caption, Play automatically choice and player bar as the main ones.
- Line art tutorial: Tour of the line art editor ("Watch a drawing get drawn, picked, sewn as satin and divided, then sewn on screen."), then Draw a line, Pick a piece of line, Take a whole line, Make a satin column, Give a line its own stitch, Divide a line, Slide a separator, Remove a separator, Delete a piece, Draw a star or a circle, See the stitches, and Read the route.
- Pixel art tutorial: Tour of the pixel editor ("Watch a sprite get painted, filled and sewn on screen."), then Paint cells, Paint with the back color, Erase cells, Draw lines and shapes, Fill an area, Take a color from the sprite, Select and move, Copy and paste, Select a patch of color, Pick and add threads, Recolor or clear a thread, Choose how it is sewn, Sprite size and cell size, and See the stitches.
These act for real on a demo of their own, never on your work, and the menu says so: in the line-art editor, "The demos draw on a drawing of their own. Yours comes back exactly as it was when a demo ends." In the pixel editor the demo sprite is the size of yours, and yours comes back the same way.
Show me, from Bobby
New in v1.4.0, you can ask Bobby, the assistant, "How do I…?". When one of the How-tos above fits, it plays it on your screen or offers a Show me button, and Show again replays it. It leaves your design as it was, like any How-to.
Related
- Create your first design, the same ground in writing
- The workspace