Almost every diagram is shapes joined by arrows. livediagram makes both fast: shapes come from the Palette, and arrows snap between shapes with quick-connect. This article covers the basics; for the full catalogue see Shapes and arrows.
Adding shapes
The Palette panel (top-right of the canvas, labelled PALETTE) groups everything you can add into tabs: Shapes, Tools, Devices, and Icons. Shapes is open by default.
Open the Shapes tab and pick a shape: square, circle, diamond, cylinder, hexagon, stadium, and many more.
Tap the tile to drop the shape at its natural size, or drag on the canvas to draw it at exactly the size you want.
Double-click the shape to add a label, then type. Enter or a click elsewhere commits it.
Beyond plain shapes, the Devices tab has UI frames for wireframes (browser, phone, laptop), and the Icons tab has a searchable grid of line icons. There is a separate Technology category for full-colour cloud and infrastructure marks, see Technology icons.
Connecting with arrows
The fastest way to draw an arrow is quick-connect:
Drag from a + onto another shape. livediagram draws an arrow pinned to both, so the arrow follows whenever you move either shape.
To draw a free connector instead, pick the Arrow tool from the Tools tab and drag between any two points.
Styling arrows
Select an arrow and right-click it to open its formatting:
- Line style: straight, curved, or angled (an L-shaped elbow).
- Line pattern: solid, dashed, or dotted.
- Thickness and arrowhead shape, size, and which ends carry a head.
- Label: double-click an arrow to type a label that rides the line.
Curved and angled arrows expose draggable handles so you can shape the path exactly.
Working in a flow? Drop a shape, label it, quick-connect to the next spot, and repeat. Because a new shape can inherit the selected one's size, chained nodes stay tidy without fiddling.
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