QuickStrip
The permanent narrow rail holding the tall size and strength sliders and the colour swatch, and exactly what it shows for each tool.
Reference
- Tool
- All tools
The QuickStrip is the narrow column between the tool palette and the first dock column. It holds the values changed most often — the tool's size, its opacity or strength, and the current colour — and it holds them permanently, where a panel could be scrolled away, collapsed into a rail, or covering the artwork.
Like the tool palette, the QuickStrip is not a dockable panel. It cannot be torn out or tabbed, and it does not appear in Window ▸ Panels. It is 38 points wide, and its width is zero in the editor's Edit workspace, which has no QuickStrip at all.
What the strip contains
From top to bottom: one vertical slider per knob the current tool declares, a divider, then the colour well.
Each slider shows its readout above the track and its icon below it. Zero is at the bottom — the value grows upward. The whole width of the column is the drag target even though the track itself is four points wide, and the drag starts wherever the finger lands rather than requiring the handle to be caught.
A slider's travel need not be linear. The brush Size sliders are logarithmic, so the low end of the range gets as much of the rail as the high end; the Text and Particles sliders are linear. The ranges are given below.
The colour well is a swatch that opens the colour wheel in a popover. It is present for every tool, including tools with no sliders at all.
What each tool shows
The strip renders one shared mapping, which is also what the focus-mode slider rail and the Brush Settings Tip section read. A tool's knobs are identical in all three places.
| Tool | Sliders |
|---|---|
| Draw | Size, Opacity |
| Eraser | Size |
| Blend | Size, Strength |
| Sculpt Stroke | Size, Strength |
| Sculpt 3D | Size, Strength |
| Shape | Size, Opacity |
| Select | none |
| Fill | none |
| Gradient | none |
| Text | Size |
| Vector Pen | Size, Opacity |
| Hand | none |
| Transform | none |
| Warp | none |
| Puppet | none |
| Rig | none |
| Particles | Size, Amount |
A tool that paints nothing shows no sliders. Fill, Gradient, Select, Transform, Warp, Puppet, Rig and Hand leave the strip empty above the divider, and the colour well moves up to fill it. This is deliberate: a size slider shown for a tool that has no size would either sit dead or, worse, resize a different tool's brush behind your back.
The sliders in detail
The same slider carries a different range and a different destination depending on the tool. Nothing is shared between tools: each has its own stored width, and the value swaps when you switch.
For Draw, Shape and Vector Pen, the brush width. Logarithmic travel.
For the Eraser, the eraser width. The eraser has no second knob: every erase dab is stamped at full opacity, and a dead Opacity slider is worse than no slider.
For Sculpt Stroke and Sculpt 3D, the sculpt radius.
For Blend, the mixing brush width.
For Text, the type size. This travel is linear, not logarithmic. It sets the selected text object's size when one is selected, otherwise the size the next text will be placed at.
For Particles, a multiplier on the effect's particle size, shown to one decimal place. It sets the selected emitter's size when one is selected, otherwise the default for the next drop.
Draw, Shape and Vector Pen only. The per-dab alpha ceiling, shown as a percentage. The floor is 2% rather than 0, so the slider cannot silently switch the brush off.
Sculpt Stroke and Sculpt 3D. How hard the sculpt brush pushes, shown as a percentage. Each tool has its own stored strength.
Blend. How much colour each pass moves.
Particles. A multiplier on how many particles the effect emits, shown to one decimal place. It sets the selected emitter's amount when one is selected, otherwise the default for the next drop.
The colour well
The swatch under the divider is bound to the brush colour — the same value the Color panel drives. Tapping it opens the colour wheel in a popover rather than a sheet, so the canvas stays visible while you choose, and the colour updates on every drag rather than on dismissal. The popover shows the wheel, a preview swatch, a read-only hex readout, and a Done button.
Because the well is bound to the brush colour and not to a per-tool value, changing it here changes it for every tool that paints.