GdnPlanner may be used to create simple 2D plans of your garden or flat (see image Garden example).

It provides the library with basic shapes for garden (on the left in the image) and main drawing area. Library may be extended with shapes created by the user, and new libraries may be created.

For each shape user may specify any number of custom properties (see image Properties).

Application may run on Windows and Linux.

It was tested on Windows 7 and OpenSuse 42.1 Leap.

Select New item from File menu to create new project. Also Ctrl+N key combination or toolbar button may be used to create new project. New project window is shown in image New project.

Frequently user has some 'official' documents for the garden, and the document may contain the plan. In that case it is helpful to scan the plan page and use it as a background to draw plan. Select Add background... item from Edit menu to add background image, then choose the graphics file in the Background file selection dialog. See example in the image Background image.

In many cases background image does not fit the plan area. So, the plan should be resized.

Select Resize plan item from Edit menu to adjust plan size. Markers on the screen will indicate current plan size (see image Resize plan).

Use mouse to drag the markers and adjust plan size. Repeat steps if necessary. Final state is shown in image Resized plan.

Now it is time to set the scale of our plan. Select Calibrate item from Edit menu. Draw line using mouse between two points with known distance between them (red arrows in the image Calibrate). Release mouse button, enter distance (in meters) in the displayed Calibrate dialog and press OK. In our case the distance is known from the background image (see red circles in image Calibrate).

Now all distances will be displayed in accordance to the scale set during the calibration. Distance usually is displayed in status bar at the bottom of the application window. For example, try to select some area on the screen with mouse to see the distance (see image Distance display).

Now it is a good time to save the project. Select Save item from File menu and enter the file name. By default project files use extension gdn.

Select Add Line item from Edit menu to draw polyline (open polygon). Also toolbar button may be used to draw polyline. Each click with left mouse button adds a vertex. Do not keep mouse button pressed while drawing the line. Use right mouse button click to finish. Use Esc key to cancel line drawing. Incorrect position of some vertex can be fixed in future (see below). Line width, color and pattern may be selected from Format menu or from toolbar. Let's draw two lines over garden borders as shown in image Borders (borders are not drawn on walls an on gates).

To adjust vertex position select the line shape and click with left mouse button on the selected line. Application will switch to vertex editing mode (see image Vertex edit mode). In this mode it is possible to:

Next step is to add shapes for house, garage and WC - all of them are shown on the plan background image. The house shape will be created using polygon (closed polyline, last vertex is connected with the first vertex). Such closed shape may be filled. Fill color and fill pattern may be selected from Format menu or from toolbar. Vertexes are added to polygon in the same way as to the line, and vertex editing is possible in the same manner.

Select Add Polygon item from Edit menu to draw polygon. Also toolbar button may be used to draw polygon. After drawing the polygon around the house the fill color was selected from Format menu. Also roof is added as some lines. Garage and WC are also drawn like a filled polygon.

After that the text House was placed over the house shape. Select Add Text from Edit menu to add text. Also toolbar button may be used to add text. After that click with left mouse button at the point where the text should be displayed. Enter the text in the Add text dialog and press OK. Text font may be set via Format menu or toolbar button.

The result is shown in image Polygon and Text.

At this stage all data from the background image are used, and it may be removed. Select Remove background from Edit menu. Result is shown in image No background.

Other shapes may be added to project:

Shape may be selected. Selected shape is indicated by green dotted rectangle and markers (see image Borders). Some markers may be not shown if resize is not supported in that direction. Normally shape is selected by mouse click. Hold the Ctrl key pressed while clicking the mouse to select more than one shape. Also shapes may be selected by rubber band. Press and hold left mouse button and move the mouse - rubber band will be displayed on the screen (see image Distance display). On mouse button release the shapes inside the rubber band will be selected. Choose Select All item from View menu or use key combination Ctrl+A to select all shapes on the screen.

Shape geometry may be edited in the following way:

Let's perform some actions on our example project:

The result is shown in image Rotated plan.

Application supports libraries of predefined shapes. Default library file extension is gdnlib. Library with basic shapes for garden is located in examples directory. examples directory on Windows is available in the application installation directory. examples directory on Linux is available in /usr/share/gdnplanner directory.

Select Open Library... item from Library menu or use toolbar button to open the library. Go to the examples directory in displayed Open Library file dialog and select garden.gdnlib file. Press OK. Library will be displayed (see image Garden library).

Select a Car item in the library and drag-n-drop it to garage. Select newly added Car shape and rotate it to fit in garage, as shown on image Car in garage.

In the same way other items from library may be added to the plan to get very close to the garden plan shown on image Garden example.

Library editing and adding new items to the library is described in Libraries section.

The following tools are available for shape formatting in Format menu (see image Format tools):

Also the tools may be used via Format toolbar. Current value of the tool is used for all new shapes. Select shapes and apply new tool value to set it to the selection. Value is updated for all children shapes if shape is a group.

Another useful tool Use format is available in Shape menu and in Shape toolbar. It sets the format tool values to the values of the selected shape.

Each shape may have tooltip. Select shape and call Edit tooltip from Shape menu or use toolbar button. Edit property dialog will be displayed - tooltip is one of the shape properties, see Add custom properties. Call the dialog for Car shape as shown in image Tooltip. Enter tooltip text and press Save.

Tooltip will be displayed when user moves mouse over the item (see image Car tooltip).

Shapes that may be filled (polygon, rectangle, ellipse, circle) support background image. This property is widely used in Garden library - almost all library items have background image.

Select shape and call Edit background image from Shape menu or use toolbar button. Edit property dialog will be displayed - background image is one of the shape properties, see Add custom properties. Call the dialog for Car shape as shown in image Car background image.

Use ... button to select different image file for the background image. All images are stored in project file. So, if big image is selected then it is scaled to 200x200 size (keeping aspect ratio) and used as a background image.

Tooltip and background image are just custom properties with predefined names. User may define other custom properties as described in Add custom properties.

For each shape user may specify any number of custom properties. Custom property consists of:

Some custom property names have special meaning for the application:

Let's add Year of manufacture property to our Car shape. Do the following to add the custom property to the shape:

Select Save item from File menu to save the project. By default project files use extension gdn.

Select Save As... item from File menu to save the project in different file.

It is possible to export project to image. Select Export to image... item from File menu and specify image file name in Save image dialog (see image Exported image).

Also it is possible to print project using Print... item from File menu.

Select New Library item from Library menu to create new library or press toolbar button. New library will be created as shown in image New library.

If you work with many libraries then it may be useful to specify library name and description. Press Edit library button on library's toolbar. Edit library settings dialog will be displayed (see image Library settings). Enter library name and description, then press OK.

Library name will be displayed in the dock window caption, but some combinations of OS/Window manager do not support this. Also library name is shown under the library toolbar, and description is shown as a tooltip for library name.

Do the following to add the shape to the library:

Shape custom properties are describer in Add custom properties. The same properties editor is available for library items. Select the item in the library and press toolbar button on the library toolbar above the list of library items.

Select library item and press F2 to edit in-place the item text. You may also edit the value of shape_type property in the properties editor.

Select library item and call context menu (right mouse button click). Select Edit icon... item from context menu to edit item's icon in the library. You may also edit the value of shape_icon property in the properties editor.

Press Save toolbar button on library toolbar to save the library to file. By default library files use extension gdnlib.

Press Save As... toolbar button on library toolbar to save the library to different file.