Customising the canvas

Overview

Customising the canvas style is likely something you'll want to do straight away when setting up a new brand. Major design choices such as choosing background colour as well as the article's padding are all set here.  Think of the canvas as the page on which all your content sits on, essentially the foundation of a style, which is then expanded upon by customising the components themselves.

To customise the canvas

1. From 'Style Manager', click the style you wish to edit.

   

   
   

2. Click the Style Canvas icon (white brush in green circle) at the top right of the canvas. This will display a sidebar containing various options.

   

3. Make your style changes to the canvas, then click Save in the 'Menu Bar'.

Canvas Options

Colour

• Canvas: Changes the background colour of the canvas all components sit upon.
• Background: Change the background colour of the body.  This is only visible if publishing to the web or to HTML email.  If publishing to apps only, we recommend setting this to the same colour value of the canvas background. 

Apple News

When publishing to Apple News, column specific options can be set using the following...

• Column Start:
• Column Span:

Margin

• Specify the top, bottom, left and right margins of the canvas in either px , pt or % .

Padding

• px: Canvas padding can be calculated in pixels for a fixed value - for example, 50px padding will be 50 pixels padding across desktop, tablet and mobile.
• %: Canvas padding can also be calculated in percentage, allowing responsive design that takes into consideration the screen width of the device content is viewed on. So 5% padding will always be 5% of the screen width on which device content is viewed on. An example of the responsiveness of 'Percentage Padding' can be found below:

Border

• Style: Choose from various border styles, Solid , Dashed , etc, etc.
• Position: Define which edges of the canvas have a border style applied to them. All , Top & Bottom , Left , Right , etc, etc.
• Width: Specify the border width in either px or pt.
• Colour: Specify the border colour in several different ways. Either visually by means of the slider and swatch window, using the eyedropper tool to select a colour currently visible anywhere on your display or by entering RBG / HSL values. You may also enter a valid color hex code.
• Radius: If you require your border to have a radius at its edges, you can set the required amount in either px or pt.
• Radius Position: Define which edges of your border have the radius set above applied to them. The default is All, but you may set a particular area as required.

Media Component Bottom Margin:

Adjust the padding margin underneath media components such as images, text, etc.  This is always defined in px.

Base Font Size

Base font size provides a quick and easy way to control the font size of your articles dependent of the device it is being viewed on.  For example you may want content to appear larger on desktop than on mobile.

Because Canvasflow is a mobile first platform, the font size given to components always applies to the mobile device.  Using the base font size control, it is possible to increase or decrease this for tablet and desktop on.  Setting the value to more than 62.5% will make the text larger, while any value less than 62.5% will make the text smaller.  You can test the effect or changes using the workspace preview menu option from within the style, article or template builder at anytime.

The base font size control applies on a global scale and will affect all text components.  If you wish to target individual text components, you must use the media query controls found in the custom CSS editor.