Introduction

In this post, I’d like to highlight some of the features of Metro Retro that might not be immediately obvious and can help you use the tool more effectively.

Selecting Multiple Objects

When using the Move Tool, you can select multiple objects and move them as a group by using the multi-selection functionality. By default, the Move Tool will move the screen when you click and drag on an empty area of the board. However, if you press and hold the Shift key before clicking, when you drag it will create a selection net that you can use to select multiple objects. Once they are selected they can be moved as a group.

You can also append to or remove from your selection by keeping the Shift key pressed and clicking on individual objects. If an object is already selected, it will become unselected, if it’s unselected then it will become selected. Using multi-select makes it easier to tidy up your boards at the end of a session or when you are building a custom template.

If you prefer to multi-select all the time instead of moving the screen, you can enable the Advanced Pointer from the settings menu in the top left. This will change the behavior of the Move Tool to act more like graphics applications such as Sketch or Adobe Illustrator. The default click and drag will be multi-select and to move the screen you hold down the Space key before dragging.

Object Cloning

Most graphical applications allow you to clone objects by using holding the Alt key when moving them. Metro Retro is no exception! You can hold the Alt key and move an object to create an identical copy and place it on your board. This is most useful when you are creating custom templates and want to position Zones next to each other with a uniform width and height.

You can also use the keyboard to quickly clone and position objects above, below or either side of the original object. To do this, select the object (or objects) you want to clone, hold the Alt key and press either the Up, Down, Left or Right key. This will clone your selection and place it in the direction you pressed next to the source. With this method, you can create a custom Zone layout with just a few key presses.

Object Nudging

When creating board template or laying out your stickies, you can use the keyboard to nudge selected objects into the right place. It’s often easier to use this method to line up Zones or Images than using the mouse.

To perform a nudge, select the object (or objects) you want to move and press either Up, Down, Left or Right on your keyboard. A single press will move the selection 10 units (pixels) in the chosen direction. To move the selection more precisely (1 unit at a time) you can hold the CTRL key before pressing an arrow. To move the selection a larger distance in one go you can hold the Shift key before pressing an arrow. When holding Shift, the distance moved will be equal to the width or height of the selection, depending on the direction you are nudging your objects.

Importing With Copy & Paste

Metro Retro has full support for Cut, Copy & Paste. You can select one or many objects and copy them with CTRL+C, cut them with CTRL+X and paste them with CTRL+V. You can copy from one board to another and your objects will retain their relative positioning to each other across the board. You can copy any of the object types, not just sticky notes.

Further, you can import sticky notes or text into Metro Retro by copying and pasting from a text editor. In Play Mode, each line of text that you copy will be transformed into its own sticky note, or if you are in Build Mode the text will be imported as is to a Text object. If you have a set of existing information in another tool that you want to bring into Metro Retro, copy and pasting is the best way to do it!

Conclusion

Hopefully these tips and tricks will help your time with Metro Retro more efficient. If there are any ideas you have for more ways we can make Metro Retro easy to use or if you are having trouble with something, please get in touch via Intercom and let us know!

‍

Thanks for reading!

‍