tldraw — Canvas

Canvas & WhiteboardSee it livetldraw.com

An infinite whiteboard where the app has almost no chrome: every control floats in small rounded white islands over an edge-to-edge canvas, and the workspace itself is the interface.

tldraw — Canvas — captured interface — Page excerpt · scroll inside to explore

Source capture · 2026-08-09Open full image ↗

Creative tools

Why this pattern works

The floating-island chrome system. There is no header bar, no sidebar, no panel column — the canvas runs edge to edge and every piece of UI is a self-contained rounded white card with a soft shadow, pinned to an edge or corner: style panel top-right, tool dock bottom-centre with a smaller undo/redo mini-bar floating just above it, zoom pill bottom-left, brand and share top corners. Each island holds exactly one job and can appear or vanish without any layout reflow. Steal this for any canvas-first tool (whiteboards, maps, diagram editors, image editors): define the canvas as the only layout, then attach controls as shadowed islands with ~8px corner radii and consistent edge margins. Also worth taking: the style panel's picker grammar — a 4-wide swatch grid, a slider, icon-only fill/dash rows, and S/M/L/XL text buttons, all in one narrow card.

Design notes

Surface: Empty whiteboard: blank canvas with the default floating panels and an SDK toast
Navigation: None in the traditional sense. Top-left holds the wordmark plus an overflow menu icon; top-right holds a share icon and a black 'Sign in to share' pill. Everything else is tool chrome, not navigation.
Layout: One layer of pure white canvas, edge to edge, with five floating islands: style panel (top-right), undo/redo mini-bar + main tool dock (bottom-centre, stacked), zoom control (bottom-left), and a dashed-border toast (bottom-right). Consistent ~12-16px margins from the viewport edges.
Density: The canvas is 95% empty; the islands are compact and tightly packed inside — the style panel fits a 12-swatch grid, a slider, 8 style pickers, and 4 size buttons in roughly 150x270px.
Color: White on white, separated by shadow. Canvas #fff, islands #fff with soft drop shadows and faint borders. Colour lives only in the swatch grid (12 saturated dots: blacks, greys, violets, blues, yellows, orange, greens, reds), the blue slider track, and a light-blue tint behind the active tool. The one filled button is the black sign-in pill.
Type: Almost no text. S/M/L/XL size buttons at ~13px bold, the zoom readout '100%' at ~13px, the toast at ~13px medium. The interface is icons; type only appears where a symbol would be ambiguous.
Pattern: The bottom-centre tool dock: a single rounded island of ~40px icon-only buttons (select, hand, draw, eraser, arrow, text, note, image, shape, more-chevron) where the active tool gets a light-blue rounded fill — with the secondary actions (undo, redo, delete, duplicate, overflow) split into a separate, visually lighter mini-bar floating above it, so history actions never crowd the tools.
States: Active states are quiet tints: the select tool sits on a pale-blue square, the current colour swatch and the M size button get light-grey backings. The SDK toast is styled as a dashed-border island with a close ×, clearly marked as removable. The empty canvas needs no empty-state copy at all — the dock is the invitation.
Don't: Don't give the canvas a header bar or dock the panels into fixed sidebars — the moment chrome touches two screen edges the infinite-canvas feel dies. And don't colour the tool icons; colour is data (the swatches), never chrome.

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Prompt text

# My project
[Describe the product, audience, and screen you want to improve]

Stack: Use the existing project stack
Task: Implement the interface and verify the result in the existing project.

## Tool guidance (Any AI tool)
Use available project tools to inspect, implement, and test. State any unavailable capabilities.

# Design reference: tldraw — Canvas
Source: https://www.tldraw.com
Swipefile reference: https://swipefile.design/ref/tldraw-canvas/
Captured: 2026-08-09. This is a dated reference, not a claim about the current live product.
Capture scope: a page excerpt. Do not infer unseen sections or interactions.

## Objective
Adapt the interaction and layout patterns below to my project. Use my own content and identity. Do not reproduce logos, proprietary copy, or brand assets.

## Reference notes
- surface: Empty whiteboard: blank canvas with the default floating panels and an SDK toast
- nav: None in the traditional sense. Top-left holds the wordmark plus an overflow menu icon; top-right holds a share icon and a black 'Sign in to share' pill. Everything else is tool chrome, not navigation.
- layout: One layer of pure white canvas, edge to edge, with five floating islands: style panel (top-right), undo/redo mini-bar + main tool dock (bottom-centre, stacked), zoom control (bottom-left), and a dashed-border toast (bottom-right). Consistent ~12-16px margins from the viewport edges.
- density: The canvas is 95% empty; the islands are compact and tightly packed inside — the style panel fits a 12-swatch grid, a slider, 8 style pickers, and 4 size buttons in roughly 150x270px.
- color: White on white, separated by shadow. Canvas #fff, islands #fff with soft drop shadows and faint borders. Colour lives only in the swatch grid (12 saturated dots: blacks, greys, violets, blues, yellows, orange, greens, reds), the blue slider track, and a light-blue tint behind the active tool. The one filled button is the black sign-in pill.
- typography: Almost no text. S/M/L/XL size buttons at ~13px bold, the zoom readout '100%' at ~13px, the toast at ~13px medium. The interface is icons; type only appears where a symbol would be ambiguous.
- pattern: The bottom-centre tool dock: a single rounded island of ~40px icon-only buttons (select, hand, draw, eraser, arrow, text, note, image, shape, more-chevron) where the active tool gets a light-blue rounded fill — with the secondary actions (undo, redo, delete, duplicate, overflow) split into a separate, visually lighter mini-bar floating above it, so history actions never crowd the tools.
- states: Active states are quiet tints: the select tool sits on a pale-blue square, the current colour swatch and the M size button get light-grey backings. The SDK toast is styled as a dashed-border island with a close ×, clearly marked as removable. The empty canvas needs no empty-state copy at all — the dock is the invitation.
- dont: Don't give the canvas a header bar or dock the panels into fixed sidebars — the moment chrome touches two screen edges the infinite-canvas feel dies. And don't colour the tool icons; colour is data (the swatches), never chrome.

Useful for: The floating-island chrome system. There is no header bar, no sidebar, no panel column — the canvas runs edge to edge and every piece of UI is a self-contained rounded white card with a soft shadow, pinned to an edge or corner: style panel top-right, tool dock bottom-centre with a smaller undo/redo mini-bar floating just above it, zoom pill bottom-left, brand and share top corners. Each island holds exactly one job and can appear or vanish without any layout reflow. Steal this for any canvas-first tool (whiteboards, maps, diagram editors, image editors): define the canvas as the only layout, then attach controls as shadowed islands with ~8px corner radii and consistent edge margins. Also worth taking: the style panel's picker grammar — a 4-wide swatch grid, a slider, icon-only fill/dash rows, and S/M/L/XL text buttons, all in one narrow card.

## Acceptance criteria
- Existing project conventions, design tokens, working functionality, and unrelated changes are preserved.
- Two or three reference principles clearly support the user's task; conflicts are resolved in favor of usability and the existing product.
- Reusable components and semantic HTML express the interface. Available licensed assets are used; important UI text is never rendered as a bitmap.
- Every visible control has a defined behavior. Loading, empty, error, success, disabled, and long-content states are specified where relevant. Demo data is clearly labeled.
- Navigation and content adapt at 375px, 768px, and 1440px without horizontal page overflow. Keyboard use, visible focus, labeled inputs, at least 44px touch targets, readable contrast, and reduced motion are supported.
- Verification distinguishes rendered behavior from proposals and identifies anything still requiring a backend or external service.

## Quality bar
Clear hierarchy, consistent spacing, restrained surfaces, and purposeful motion. Avoid decorative gradients, excessive cards, placeholder buttons, and invented metrics unless the project calls for them. Do not claim a feature is connected or tested without evidence.

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## Objective
Adapt the interaction and layout patterns below to my project. Use my own content and identity. Do not reproduce logos, proprietary copy, or brand assets.

tldraw — Canvas

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