A Lane is a wide band with a titled gutter down one edge, for cross-functional flows: a role, a team or a system per lane, with its steps laid inside.
It sits in the palette's Draw category, beside Frame.
Dragging a lane takes its contents
Drag a lane and everything fully inside it comes along. That is the difference between a lane and a plain rectangle: a swimlane is a container, so moving the band moves the work.
Two rules make that predictable:
- Only elements the lane completely contains travel with it. Something half in and half out stays where it is.
- If two containers overlap, an element belongs to the one furthest back, so it travels with that one and not with whichever you happened to drag.
Resizing a lane is deliberately different: it resizes the band and leaves the contents where they are.
The title
The title is an ordinary element label, so you edit, format and align it like any other. The tinted gutter is its backdrop and follows its alignment — align the title right and the gutter moves with it.
Stacking lanes
Lanes are placed like anything else and are not auto-stacked; snapping and the alignment guides make butting one under another straightforward. Flush lanes look right: a lane's outline is a single hairline, so two touching lanes do not double into a heavier line.
Build the flow first and drop the lanes underneath it afterwards. Because a lane picks up whatever it fully contains, sizing a band around a finished row is often quicker than placing the band and then working inside it.
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