Smart sections provide a great way to organise and navigate content on boards. This feature enables hierarchical structuring of board content that can be split and contained within separate sections. Smart sections are designed to improve board usability for all users, including those relying on assistive technologies.
You can use them to:
- create an overview of the board
- create presentations from board content
- change where the board opens when a user joins
- create custom exports (as image or pdf)
- navigate your layout during presentations
Adding Board Sections
There are two ways to add sections on boards: converting board items into sections or creating sections from the sidebar menu
Please note. Users on boards must be editors to be able to edit board sections. However, everyone on a board can use board sections for navigation. Learn more about Board Access Roles.
Add Board Shapes as Sections
The following items can be added as board sections:
- Shapes (you can create shapes around scribbles if you want to include them as sections)
- Multi-page files are automatically added as a single board section with subsections per every page
How to convert board shapes into sections:
- Select the shape
- Click the "Add to sections" icon in the floating toolbar or use the right click menu "Add to sections"
- A pop-up will appear to clarify if single shapes should be converted separately or as a group
How to Create Sections via Sidebar Menu
- Zoom out to where you can see all content
- Open sections sidebar ("list" icon) and click on "+" to create a new section
- Alternatively, you can create a new section via the "Insert" menu -> "Insert section"
- Sidebar menu will change to the sections page
- Select your preferred section type
- Double-click your selection or drag-and-drop to create a new section
How to Add Custom-Sized Sections
What can you do with the custom section sizes? Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Create quick UI sketches for apps
- Export board sections to use in Powerpoint (use the 4:3 ratio)
- Setup Letter or A4 page sections so you can easily print out your custom board exports
- Setup 16:9 ratio sections in the board to make sure your interactive presentations look great on laptops
Besides Custom size and Freeform sections, Conceptboard offers a variety of other section sizes. You can choose between:
- Ratio: 16:9, 4:3, 1:1
- Page format: A4 Portrait, A4 landscape, Letter portrait, Letter landscape
- Devices: Mobile, Tablet portrait, Tablet landscape, Desktop, Desktop HD
Sections as Containers
Board sections in Conceptboard behave as "context aware". Any item that you add to a section will be attached to that section, or contained. This feature eliminates the need to manually group objects with their respective sections or to select multiple objects before moving them on the board.
How it works
- Contained by default: When you drag a section, it automatically detects everything inside its borders (containment) and moves all items together. You do not need any manual group selection
- Safe Transformations: This containment only applies to the action of moving the section on the board. Resizing a section works independently of its contents. The items inside do not scale or stretch when you resize the section itself
- Deletion: Deleting a section, will delete its content.
- Duplication: Duplicating a section, will duplicate its content.
Pinned Item inside sections
If you pin an object inside a section:
- It always stays in place inside the section where you pinned it
- It always retains its position relative to other objects inside the section and the section itself
- You cannot move the item separately until you unpin it
- When the section moves, the pinned item moves with it, maintaining its pinned position relative to the section and other objects inside it
Pinned Elements
All elements on the board are created unpinned, but can be pinned by selecting and clicking the pin item in the floating toolbar. Pinning items makes it easier to work on top of content, as it essentially locks the item preventing accidental movement, deletion, and certain types of modification thereof.
Actions that are permitted on pinned elements without unpinning:
- text editing
- updating text styles
- changing the colour of the element
- adding object links
- adding rows and columns in tables
Actions that are prohibited on pinned elements before unpinning:
- moving the element
- resizing
- rotation
- cropping
- object deletion
- object alignment
Note: More details can also be found in this section of Pinning Items to the Board
How to Organise Your Sections and Subsections
Use sections as containers for different types of content which is organised into subsections
Subsection are automatically created when you drag items into the section field
You can arrange subsections in the sections menu (right-click) independently from their actual position on the board (move up/down the sidebar)
You can filter subsections by content type (shapes, text fields, icons, tables, tasks, sticky notes, scribbles, images etc.) via switching the toggle to "-"
You can manage sections and subsections individually via the right-click drop-down menu
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Search bar at the top enables section and subsection navigation by name
How to Navigate With Your Sections
When you select any item in the sections menu (blue highlight), this item is automatically brought into the focal point on the board
Use TAB to move on your board's command panel, incl. sections, when using keyboard
You can expand or collapse the subsection menu with the toggle on the section bar or with the three-dot menu next to the search bar
Manage Multiple Sections All At Once
You can multi-select sections and subsections using Control+Left-Click and Shift+Left-Click
You can rename multi-selected sections moving in the top-down order
Other actions allowed on multi-selected sections or subsections:
Multi-selected sections can be duplicated, removed from the sections menu, exported as pdf/png, or deleted (incl. their content) via the right-click menu
Multi-selected items in the subsections menu can be duplicated, exported as image or deleted via the right-click menu
Items dragged outside the section's field are removed from the side sections menu
Changing Board Landing Position
When you open a board, you will be presented with a full-board view, which encompasses all board content. You can then choose to change the landing point to a specific area on the board. For example, if you could emphasise the latest iteration, or create a welcome banner for the board.
How to Change Landing Point
- Create a section, or add an item to the sections list
- Right-click the item in the sidebar menu and choose "Set as start section". It will be marked with an icon to show it is the initial starting section for the board.
How to Reset the Start Position
- To reset the starting position, right-click the starting section again and select: "Unset as start section"
Enhance Accessibility with Sections
Screen Reader Support
Screen readers can identify and announce the following information:
Item types: section, shape, card, table, note, etc.
Item description: you can add descriptions to imported images on boards for content identification
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Context information:
Sections: Number of contained items
Tables: Rows and columns
Cards: Description
For example:
"Section: Project Overview, 5 objects"
"Card: Design Review, Status: In Progress, Assigned to: John Smith"
"Table: Budget Data, 10 rows by 5 columns"
Item description: Image
Keyboard Navigation
Full keyboard support is enabled for navigating the sections panel: