Using the Triangle tool

Draw a right triangle in one drag — either as a free annotation or as the on-canvas representation of a product that's drawn as a triangle.

Where this lives: Customers → Appointment → Drawing → Tools → Triangle
For: Admin
Manager
Customer Care
Sales

Why this matters

The Triangle tool does two jobs that look the same and behave differently. Used on a general layer, a triangle is a free annotation — a piece of communication on the canvas, no price attached. Used on a product layer whose product is configured to draw as a triangle, the triangle is the on-canvas representation of an instance of that product. Same gesture, two outcomes.

Triangle is a specialised tool. It always produces a right triangle from a single drag, which means it's only the right choice when the real-world shape reads as roughly triangular and one of the corners is a right angle. When that's true, Triangle is faster than tapping three Polygon vertices. When it isn't, Polygon reads the actual shape more honestly. (The size of the triangle on the canvas is not to scale and does not drive pricing; measurements are entered separately on the layer.)

Either way, the triangle ships out the door. The canvas renders on the contract PDF the customer signs, on the job information PDF the production team reads, and on the proposal.

Step 1 — Decide where the triangle belongs: a product or an annotation

Open Drawing on the appointment, then pick a layer in the layer sidebar. The layer you choose determines what the triangle means:

A product layer whose product is set to draw as a triangle. The styling controls in the toolbar dim out, because the triangle will use the product's preset fill color, stroke color, stroke width, line style, and label. The triangle you draw represents an instance of that product on the canvas and is labeled with the product's name on the contract drawing. The size of the triangle on the canvas is illustrative — measurements that drive pricing live in the layer's measurement inputs, not the canvas geometry.
A general or custom layer. The styling controls stay live. Triangles you draw here are annotations — they don't add anything to the option card, and the shape is yours to style.

A product's draw tool is set when the product is created (Admin → Products → Visibility → On Contract → Drawing shape type), and an admin can change a product from Triangle to any other tool at any time. If a real-world shape is more complex than a right triangle, the Polygon tool will fit it more honestly.

Drawing is read-only on a sold appointment or on the pre-existing layers of a sold change order, so on those the toolbar will be inert regardless of layer type.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Choosing the layer in the layer sidebar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-01-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Choosing the layer in the layer sidebar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-01-ipad.png

Step 2 — Select the Triangle tool

If you picked a product layer whose product is set to draw as a triangle, Bidvio already selected Triangle for you. The toolbar highlights the Triangle button and you can skip ahead to drawing.

If you picked a general layer, tap Triangle in the drawing toolbar on the left — the icon is an outlined triangle. The button highlights to show it's the active tool.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Selecting the Triangle tool in the toolbar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-02-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Selecting the Triangle tool in the toolbar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-02-ipad.png

Step 3 — Apply a drawing preset, or style the triangle yourself

There are three ways to style a triangle on a general or custom layer.

Apply a drawing preset (the fast path)

Tap the Presets menu at the top of the toolbar (the "P" icon). It lists every drawing preset your company has configured. Tap one and Bidvio sets the active tool, fill color, stroke color, stroke width, stroke style, and label to match.

A drawing preset is a named, saved combination of tool + styling + label. It's how a company standardizes the look of a recurring annotation across every rep without anyone having to remember the recipe. Presets are configured by an admin in Admin → Appointment Format → Drawing presets and apply to the next shape you draw — not retroactively. The Presets menu is locked on a product layer.

Customize the styling for this one triangle

Because a triangle is a closed shape, four styling controls apply to it:

Fill color — the colour inside the triangle.
Stroke color — the outline.
Stroke width — choose from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, or 100 px.
Stroke style — Solid, Dashed, or Dotted.

On a product layer, skip the styling step entirely

The styling controls (and the Presets menu) are locked. The product's preset is the point: every triangle drawn for a given product should look the same so the install crew reads them consistently. If you want a one-off styling for a triangle that represents a product, draw it on a general layer instead and explain the intent in Customer Wills or Contractor Wills — but you'll lose the contribution to the option card's quantity.

Setting styling — by preset or by hand — before you draw is the right order. To restyle an existing triangle, erase and redraw.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Presets menu and stroke controls/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-03-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Presets menu and stroke controls/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-03-ipad.png

Step 4 — Drag from one corner of the right angle to the opposite vertex

With the Triangle tool active, touch the canvas where you want the start point and drag to the end point. Bidvio constructs a right triangle from those two points: the right angle sits along the axes between them, and the third vertex is computed from the start and end positions. A preview follows your finger so you can see the resulting triangle before committing. Release to place it.

Because the right angle is always axis-aligned, Triangle isn't a tool for arbitrarily rotated three-sided shapes — for those, use Polygon and place three vertices yourself.

If Snap to Grid is on (the dot-grid icon near the bottom of the toolbar shows whether it's active), both the start and end points jump to the nearest grid intersection as you drag, which keeps the triangle's right angle sitting on the grid.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Dragging to construct the right triangle/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-04-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Dragging to construct the right triangle/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-04-ipad.png

Step 5 — Reposition or resize after drawing

To move or reshape a triangle after the fact:

Tap the Select tool in the toolbar (the hand icon).
Tap inside the triangle. Three small dot handles appear at the vertices.
Drag a vertex handle to move that corner. Drag anywhere inside the triangle to translate the whole shape without changing its corners.

Snap to Grid applies the same way during these edits — vertex handles snap to the grid if you have it on. Moving a vertex in Select mode is the only way to break out of the strict right-angle construction the tool created with: once you've placed the triangle, the three vertices are independent, and you can drag any of them anywhere. If you find yourself reshaping every triangle you draw, that's a sign Polygon was the right tool from the start.

Reshaping the triangle on the canvas doesn't change the product's quantity on the option card — the canvas is illustrative — but if the triangle's new shape and the measurement values on the layer no longer agree, update the measurement inputs separately.

To change a triangle's fill, stroke color, width, or style after placement, erase it (the Eraser tool, or Select + delete) and redraw. There's no per-shape style editor.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Select tool showing the triangle's three vertex handles/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-05-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Select tool showing the triangle's three vertex handles/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-triangle-tool-05-ipad.png

Step 6 — What ends up on the contract

A triangle only shows up on the contract if the layer it lives on is included in the option being sold. Every layer carries a per-option inclusion toggle in the layer sidebar with three states:

Included (green check) — the layer renders on the contract drawing for this option and its products count on the option's totals.
Recommended (orange triangle) — the layer shows in the recommendations view so you can pitch it, but it's not on the contract until you (or the customer) flips it to Included.
Excluded (red X) — the layer doesn't render on the contract and doesn't count on totals for this option.

That distinction matters for triangles in both directions. A product triangle on a layer that's only Recommended doesn't add its product to the option's totals, and the triangle itself won't appear on the contract drawing or the job information sheet for that option. An annotation triangle on a layer that isn't Included doesn't carry through to the documents either.

When a triangle's layer is included, the canvas renders on the contract, the proposal, and the job information sheet. Product triangles carry their product's name as a label; annotation triangles render with the fill, color, and style you drew them in. The drawing is often more durable than the prose around it: where they conflict, most crews follow the drawing first.