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AnnexDesign – User Manual

1. Overview

AnnexDesign is the vector design app of the AnnexCREATE suite for macOS. It targets freelancers, sole traders and small agencies, covering the path from draft via approval and versioning to print-ready export.

Core benefits:

AnnexDesign is part of the suite's Creative-OS idea: all apps share the design system, the common document container format, local data storage (offline-first) and combine modularly – via brandkits, the asset library, the suite clipboard and open export formats.

2. Installation & Activation

AnnexDesign is installed via AnnexHub:

  1. Open AnnexHub and select AnnexDesign in the app catalog.
  2. Wait for the download; the app lands in the Applications folder.
  3. License activation is handled centrally in AnnexHub; offline activation is possible.

The app works offline-first: it runs fully without a server connection. The optional team workspace sync uses a configurable server connection; it is never a prerequisite. iCloud sync is not wired up.

3. Basic Workflow

  1. New document: AnnexDesign starts with an empty workspace (artboard on the canvas).
  2. Create shapes: choose Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon or Pen in the toolbar and draw on the canvas by click/drag.
  3. Style: set fill/stroke colors, stroke width, opacity, blend mode and effects in the inspector – using the unified palette of document and brandkit colors.
  4. Organize: group layers in the sidebar, toggle visibility and lock them; smart guides help with alignment.
  5. Version: set a checkpoint in the versions panel to secure the current state.
  6. Approve (optional): create an approval request with reviewer and due date in the approval panel.
  7. Export: File ▸ Export… opens the export modal with presets (Web, Print, Share, Transparent) and format PNG/SVG/PDF.
  8. Save: File ▸ Save (⌘S) stores the document as .axd; File ▸ Save As… (⌘⇧S) under a new name.

4. Core Features

4.1 Workspace and Menu Bar

The window follows the suite design system: three columns (sidebar with assets, layers, approvals and history; canvas with artboard; context-sensitive inspector), a transparent title bar and a themable design (light/dark/system). The menu bar (File) contains:

Undo (⌘Z) and Redo (⌘⇧Z) live in the toolbar. The same commands are also available as quick menus in the app header: "Export" (Export PNG, Export SVG, Export PDF, Save .axd) and "Import / Load" (Import File..., Import Image, Import SVG, Import PDF, Insert QR Code..., Load .axd). Since stage 0.7.3.D every one of these commands is reachable from the menu bar as well — previously they existed only in the header, and a header menu can be reached neither by a keyboard shortcut nor through menu search or keyboard navigation. The interface is fully localized in German, English, Spanish, French and Italian.

4.2 Two Working Personas

The "Design" persona offers the vector tools; the "Pixel" persona brush and eraser (DesignPersona). Toolbar and inspector adapt to the selected persona.

4.3 Vector Tools

Seven tools (DesignTool): Select, Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Pen (Bézier path), Text and Connect. Objects are created and moved on the canvas by click/drag.

4.4 Layers and Groups

Layer management (LayersView, DesignDocument) supports hierarchical groups (group/ungroup), visibility and lock toggles, multi-selection (⌘/⇧) and marquee selection. Undo/redo (⌘Z/⌘⇧Z) works with a configurable limit.

4.5 Alignment, Smart Guides and Guides

When moving objects, smart guides (SmartGuideService) show alignments and snap to artboard edges/center, other layers and guides. Guides and margins live on a non-exported construction layer with its own editor (GuidesEditorSheet).

4.6 Inspector

The context-sensitive inspector (InspectorView) offers transform fields (X/Y/width/height, unit selectable), fill/stroke colors, stroke width, opacity, 16 blend modes, non-destructive layer effects (Gaussian blur, drop shadow), text style (font size, weight, alignment, italic, line height) and text-on-path. The color palette unifies document colors and brandkit colors.

4.7 Design Styles

Design styles (DesignStyle) are document-wide, non-destructive style filters – Sketch, Blueprint, Monochrome, Neon. They are identical in live preview, PNG and PDF export.

4.8 Gradients

Linear (with angle) and radial gradient fills (GradientFill) with any number of color stops (position 0–1 + color). The stop editor in the inspector allows adding, removing, color and position. Gradients render on the canvas and are written to SVG export as real <linearGradient>/<radialGradient> defs; the format stays backward compatible (solid fill is the default).

4.9 Connectors and Diagrams

With the Connect tool you draw directed connections between layers (Connector). They are orthogonally routed and non-destructive – they follow the layers when moved, e.g. for org charts and mind maps.

Use Object ▸ Remove connections or the layer's context menu to detach a connection; both remove every connection attached to the selection. Deleting a layer removes its connections as well. Limit: ⌘Z does not bring a removed connection back – the history tracks layers, not connections.

4.10 Pixel Persona

The pixel persona provides a configurable brush (Brush) with size, hardness, opacity and round/square tip, in Paint and Erase modes, with a brush cursor on real RGBA pixel layers (PixelRenderService).

4.11 QR Code Generator

Via "Import / Load ▸ Insert QR Code..." (QRCodeSheet) you create QR codes from URL or text with error correction level and foreground/background color – as grouped vector modules directly on the canvas.

4.12 Approval Workflow

The approval panel (ApprovalPanel) manages approval requests with reviewer and due date, revisions with notes, visual annotations as canvas markers (with hover details) and comments. You create an annotation in three ways: from the object's context menu (the marker lands at its center), via Object ▸ Add annotation…, or with the button in the approval panel. It belongs to the most recent revision – without a running approval or without a revision the app says what is missing first. The status moves through Draft / In Review / Approved / Rejected – everything is persisted in the document. An approval can also be exported as an exchange format (ApprovalExchange, AnnexInteropKit).

4.13 Versioning

The versions panel (DesignVersionsPanel, VersionManifest) offers manual checkpoints (snapshots in the .axd container), restoring earlier versions and approval rounds per version. A central version index and the offline-first team workspace sync with a configurable server connection complement local versioning.

4.14 History Panel

The history panel (HistoryPanel) lists all undo steps with descriptions and lets you jump to any step.

4.15 Brandkits and Assets

Brandkits can be linked per document (DesignBrandkitAssetsSection): their colors appear in the palette, their assets in the sidebar (AssetLibraryView). Assets or files can be dragged directly onto the canvas; linked assets offer a context menu ("Show in Finder", "Edit in AnnexPhoto").

4.16 Suite Clipboard

Layers can be copied and pasted across apps with ⌘C/⌘V (AnnexPasteboard, AnnexInteropKit) – e.g. paste a layer from AnnexDesign into AnnexPublish.

4.17 Export and Print

File ▸ Export… opens the unified export modal (ExportModalView, ExportViewModel): presets (Web, Print, Share, Transparent), format PNG/SVG/PDF, scale 1x/2x/3x, DPI 72–600, color space (RGB/CMYK/Grayscale), white/transparent background, quality, live preview and file size estimate. Printing (⌘P) runs through the shared print pipeline (AnnexPrintSheet) with paper sizes A4/A3/A5/Letter/Legal, portrait/landscape, scaling modes and margins.

4.18 Autosave and Settings

Silent autosave saves at the known file location in a configurable interval – without a dialog. In Settings (⌘,) you configure appearance (Light/Dark/System), undo limit, smart guide snapping and threshold, unit, autosave and privacy (telemetry/diagnostics).

4.19 Symbols and Instances

A symbol is a reusable component – a button, a header block, a logo lockup. Select the layers and create a template with "Symbol from selection" in the "Symbols" panel (or in the inspector under "Symbol"). The selected layers stay in place as an instance. Clicking an entry in the panel inserts another instance.

The core: change the template and every instance follows. Change something on a single instance – a different colour, a different text – and that deviation survives, even when the template changes later. An instance does not store its content; it stores the template plus the list of what differs. An individualised instance is marked in the inspector with a + after the template name (Button+) – the same notation as the paragraph and character styles in AnnexText and AnnexPublish, and the same model behind it.

The inspector section "Symbol instance" offers three commands:

Command Effect
Reset to template discards this instance's deviations
Update template from instance pushes the deviations into the template; all other instances follow and keep their own deviations
Detach instance turns the instance into an ordinary group; the content stays, the link ends

Deleting a symbol detaches its instances – nothing is lost on the canvas.

Limits of this release: nested symbols are not supported. An instance takes the size of its template; scaling the instance as a whole is not implemented (individual layers inside it may differ in size).

4.20 Auto Layout for Diagrams

With a multiple selection the inspector shows the "Auto layout" section. It arranges the layers as a layered layout – top down (org chart) or left to right (flow/mind map), with configurable layer and node gaps. The edges come from the existing connectors (see 4.9). With no multiple selection the command applies to every layer attached to a connector; the section states how many beforehand. The arrangement stays where the diagram was – it does not jump into the corner of the document.

4.21 3D Objects

The "3D objects" panel places software 3D on the canvas – no 3D hardware involved, the objects are projected into 2D polygons and shaded:

Each object expands in the list to colour, depth angle and depth scale; the trash icon removes it.

4.22 Patterns

A pattern is a fill made of repeated elements. Patterns belong to the document – just like colours and gradients: they live once in the “Patterns” panel and layers refer to them. Change a pattern and every area using it changes with it.

Creating. “New pattern” creates a dotted pattern. “From selection” takes the selected shape as the motif – turning a drawn leaf, star or logo element into a tiled fill. This needs a shape (rectangle, ellipse, polygon or path); for text, images, pixel layers and groups the button stays disabled and says why.

Applying. Select a layer, click the pattern name in the panel. A checkmark shows which pattern the selection carries; “Remove pattern from selection” takes it off again and the area falls back to its colour or gradient.

Tiling and offset. The arrow on the left of an entry reveals the settings:

Setting Effect
Motif dots, squares, triangles, stripes, grid, crosses – or your own shape from “From selection”
Tile width / height size of one cell in points
Offset X / Y shifts the whole tiling
Row offset staggers every second row (0.5 = brick bond)
Motif size how much of the cell the element fills
Rotation rotates the tiling
Motif colour / tile background colour of the element and optionally of the tile

Important about placement: The tiling is anchored to the document origin, not to the object – like a ruler origin. Two areas with the same pattern therefore sit in the same grid. Move an area and the pattern travels underneath it; to move it along, adjust the offset.

Patterns are drawn identically on the canvas, in the preview, in PNG, PDF and SVG. The SVG carries a real <pattern> – vector, no rasterisation.

Limit: The SVG export writes the bottom fill of each shape (this has always been the case, it is not new with patterns). A pattern on a higher fill of the appearance stack therefore shows on the canvas, in the preview, in PNG and PDF, but not in SVG.

4.23 Distortion (warp/mesh)

The inspector section “Distortion” places a mesh over a shape so you can pull it into shape.

  1. Add mesh. A grid of cells now covers the layer; “Cells across/down” sets how fine it is (1 to 8 per axis). Changing the resolution keeps a deformation you have already pulled – it is transferred onto the new mesh.
  2. Drag. The mesh points appear on the canvas as handles. Each drag is exactly one undo step. “Finish editing” hides the handles again (clicking next to the object does the same).
  3. Presets. Arc, wave, bulge and perspective set a deformation as a starting point; every point can then be dragged further by hand.
  4. Undo. “Reset mesh” restores the original shape and keeps the mesh, “Remove mesh” takes both away. The distortion is non-destructive – the layer keeps its geometry, across saving and loading too.

What gets distorted and what does not: Distortion works on shapes – rectangle, ellipse, polygon and path. Text, images, pixel layers and groups stay undistorted; the section says so instead of showing an empty set of controls. The reason is not convenience: the distortion lives in the path geometry, and these layer types have none. Dragging an image along “approximately” would work on screen, in PNG and in PDF – but not in SVG. Exactly one output path would then look different, and that is ruled out.

Two further honest limits: Curves are broken into fine straight segments for the distortion (a bilinearly warped Bézier is no longer a Bézier). And strokes keep their width – it is not carried along the mesh.

Identical in every output path: The distortion is folded into the layer outline that canvas, preview, PNG, PDF and SVG all take their shape from. SVG does not know mesh distortion as a feature of its own; there the already distorted geometry appears as an ordinary <path> – vector, and the same in every viewer.

4.24 Linked Objects

Use File ▸ Place… (or drag & drop from Finder) to insert images and assets as a linked object. In the place dialog choose between Linked and Embedded. Linked objects remain a reference to the original file and are not copied into the .axd container.

Linked objects are marked with a link symbol in the layers list. The inspector shows the source file path and the current status:

Status Meaning
ok Source file is unchanged and available.
modified Source file was changed externally; AnnexDesign offers Update, Ignore or Update All.
missing Source file was moved or deleted; the last embedded copy is used as fallback.
embedded The file was deliberately embedded into the document.

Double-clicking a linked object opens the source in the appropriate app (e.g. AnnexPhoto for images). Via the layer context menu you can update the link, reveal the source in Finder, or embed the object permanently.

Limits: Live updates rely on a file watcher; very rapid, repeated external changes may be coalesced into a single update dialog. Opening the source app is not a bidirectional round-trip – you save in the source app and confirm the update in AnnexDesign.

4.25 Image Trace

Object ▸ Trace Image… converts pixel images into vector graphics. The dialog offers presets for different source material:

Preset Use case
Logo Few colours, clean edges – typical for logos and icons.
Photo Many colours and gradients, photorealistic sources.
Sketch Line drawings, scanned hand sketches.
Black & White High-contrast sources for pure black-and-white vector output.

Tracing produces a new vector layer with editable paths. The original image remains as a separate layer and can be hidden or deleted.

Limits: Fine colour gradients are translated into discrete colour areas; photos do not become photorealistic vectors but stylised vector versions.

5. Formats & Interoperability

Native format .axd: container of the shared Rust core (AnnexCoreKit/AnnexDocument). It holds the design snapshot (design.json), the version/approval manifest and the version snapshots. Save, "Save As" and Open are wired in the menu bar.

Import:

Export: PNG (raster), SVG (vector shapes, groups, text incl. textPath, gradient fills as real gradient defs; image and pixel layers are not exported), PDF (vector pipeline via Core Graphics).

Suite integration:

6. MCP Control

The MCP host runs in AnnexHub (JSON-RPC 2.0 via STDIO) and is started from there; AnnexDesign itself does not host a server but provides tools. This makes the suite's actions automatable by local AI agents.

Suite-wide tools (all apps):

App-specific tool:

Suite-wide skills (templates for agents): suite.discover (explore the suite) and brandkit.apply (apply brandkit – supports AnnexDesign and AnnexPublish).

7. Diagnostics & Privacy

AnnexDesign logs errors and actions locally via AnnexLog (AnnexDiagnosticsKit) into rotating JSON log files under ~/Library/Logs/AnnexCREATE/AnnexDesign/, mirrored to os_log (subsystem com.annexcreative.annexdesign). The logs contain no personally identifiable information (PII filter). Diagnostics is enabled by default during the development phase and can be switched off in Settings (Privacy); nothing is transmitted. Telemetry runs strictly opt-in (default off). The app needs no server connection to operate; team workspace sync is optional.

8. FAQ

In which format does AnnexDesign save? As an .axd container with design snapshot, version/approval manifest and version snapshots – locally on the Mac.

Is there undo/redo? Yes – with a configurable limit, and the history panel lists all steps and lets you jump to any state.

Can I import and export SVG? Yes, with limitations: import covers the basic elements (paths are simplified); SVG export omits image and pixel layers.

Is there CMYK export? Yes. In the export dialog you choose the color space RGB, CMYK or Grayscale, plus DPI from 72 to 600.

How do I send a design for review? Via the approval panel: create a request with reviewer and due date, collect revisions and comments – the approval can additionally be exported as an exchange format.

Can I put text on a path? Yes – text-on-path is available in the inspector and written to SVG export as textPath.

Does the app work offline? Yes. AnnexDesign is offline-first; team workspace sync is optional and configurable, iCloud is not wired up.

Where do I find logs when something goes wrong? Under ~/Library/Logs/AnnexCREATE/AnnexDesign/ (rotating JSON logs).