Canvas functionalities

Our flexible canvas offers multiple ways to make your bot building experience quick and easy.

🎥 Canvas video tutorial

Prefer to watch instead of read? In this tutorial, learn how to use the different canvas functionalities by building a quick and easy Pizza bot 👇

If you prefer to read, we'll go through each special functionality of the canvas below 👇

Auto-layout

If you try out the canvas with an existing bot, your bot blocks will appear as overlapping. The auto-layout functionality is there to solve that.

To use Auto-layout:

1. From your canvas, click on the Auto-layout button at the bottom left of your screen.

2. Your blocks are now spread over the canvas in a non-overlapping fashion.

3. Feel free now to drag and drop each block where you like it the best!

Auto-layout button

Use the auto-layout functionality to work around your blocks appearing in piles.

Drag and drop

To add new blocks to your bot with the canvas, simply drag and drop them directly from the top-right corner to anywhere you like in the canvas.

Drag and drop blocks to the canvas

Arrow as connections

There are two types of arrow connections:

• The plain arrows represent the Go-to connections, i.e. an actual flow connection. This means that the blocked pointed to by the arrow happens right after the first one, guiding the conversation from one component to another.

• The dotted arrows are Parent-child connections, designed primarily as a visual aid to help you organize your flows. While it doesn't create functional links between components, it offers a tool for visually structuring your block in a coherent manner.

Connect components with a Go-to connection

To link two components with arrows, click the Go-to dot at the bottom right corner of a node, after which you're able to connect it with any other existing block or you can just create a new one if you don't have a block available yet.

Go-to dot from where you can draw connections

From the Go-to dots, draw connections between components.

Connect components with a Parent-child connection

To effectively organize your block, use a Parent-child visual connection. It will be easier to follow the conversation flow and understand how different blocks interact. This is especially useful when connecting blocks with intent blocks with context, providing a clear and intuitive way to organize your flow.

Parent-child connection enhances visualization when intents and blocks lack Go-to connections.

Delete arrows

Both Go-to and Parent-child arrows can be deleted by hovering over them and clicking the trash icon.

Click on the trash icon from an arrow to delete a flow connection

Connection settings

You have the flexibility to move arrows back and forth at your convenience to achieve the perfect positioning. Additionally, you are able to modify their colours to suit your preferences.

Should you ever want to revert to the previous arrow design, a simple reset option allows you to restore the original arrows instantly.

Components that can be connected

You can draw arrows from and to the following components:

• Intents

Example of connection between an intent and a block

• Blocks

Example of flow connection between several blocks

• Conditions

Example of connection between a Condition and a Message block.

• Buttons

Example of connections between buttons in a block and other block types

Clear view of components

With the new canvas, we wanted to bring to you as much information as needed from the first glance. Here is what you can see straight away from your flows:

Intents and contexts

Intents now appear in the actual flow of your bot within green boxes.

How an intent is displayed on the new canvas

Input and output contexts are represented on the intents boxes by an icon pointing inwards (for input context) or downwards (for the output context). You can read was context is there by hovering the icon.

Hover the context icon to see what context is required for that intent.

Block details

With the new canvas, you get previews of your bot messages, buttons, pictures and much more without needing to open the components!

Example of previews from a piece of a flow