What is a Canvas and What can it Do?

A Scoop canvas is just that, a digital canvas that you can use to lay out visual objects to create analyses, tell data stories, or simply brainstorm ideas. Physically, a canvas is a logical surface that is very, very large. You can drop objects like text, images, charts, data summary tables and other items on top of it. When viewing a canvas you can pan left, right, up or down. And you can zoom in and out. This allows you to creatively compose visual elements however you like.

Canvas Navigator Screen

Initially in Scoop you find yourself on the canvas navigator screen. You can also reach this screen by selecting the Canvas icon in the toolbar at the top. This screen presents thumbnail images or placeholders for each of the canvases present in your current workspace. Clicking on a particular thumbnail will open up that canvas. You can also rename, copy or delete a canvas by clicking on the three dot menu in the upper right of each thumbnail.

Canvas Modes

When you have selected a canvas to display or edit, initially you will be in the canvas viewer mode, indicated by the pointer icon in the upper left (as seen below).

Viewer Mode

In the viewer mode, you can zoom in or zoom out of the canvas (with the zoom control in the lower right of the screen), as well as pan left, right, up or down to see the entire canvas.

Also, in viewer mode, all canvas objects are interactive. You can:- Change prompt values

  • Drill on charts or tables
  • Click into spreadsheet sheetlets to edit cells
  • Mouseover or hover over objects to see more detail## Edit ModeIf you would like to edit the canvas to add new objects, modify existing objects, or delete objects, you select the edit icon (next to the pointer arrow to the right). Once you are in edit mode, if you click on an object you will select it vs. interacting with it in viewer mode. In edit mode you can:- Add a new object
  • Delete an object
  • Set the object's outer style (background and border)
  • Open the object to edit it
  • Change some display settings (like whether column headers or a grid are shown on sheetlets)
  • Open the underlying Google sheet (in the case of sheetlets)

Presentation Mode

By clicking the third icon in the mode bar, you enter presentation mode. This mode only works if there are frames on your canvas. Each frame becomes a slide in presentation mode and you can, accordingly present your slides in a designated order, move backward and foward, and interact with the data elements present on those slides while in presentation mode.