Edit Flaps

Switch, Add and Remove Flaps

The flaps are used to help you glue the split edges together. You can decide where to place the flaps by using the Flap Tool. The tool has two modes: switch mode and add/remove mode. You can switch the mode in the inspector.

In switch mode,

• Click a flap to move it to another side.
• Click an edge to move the flap on another side to this side.
• Drag to make a selection box to switch multiple flaps at once.

In add/remove mode,

• Click a flap to remove it.
• Click an edge to add an additional flap.
• Drag to make a selection box to remove multiple flaps at once.
• Hold down the option key and drag to make a selection box to add multiple flaps at once.

The add/remove mode is only used for some special cases. Please be careful when using it, because removing necessary flaps may cause the papercraft cannot be built.

Reshape Flaps

You can use the following ways to reshape flaps:

• Select a flap with the Subselect Tool and drag the handles on the flap. Holding down the shift key will constrain the angle to multiples of 15°, or constrain the height to multiples of 1mm or 0.05inch, which depends on the units you are using.
• Select a flap (or some flaps) and drag up and down on the flap image in the inspector. The left and right areas are used to adjust the angles, and the middle area is used to adjust the height.
• Select a flap (or some flaps) and type the angles and height in the inspector.

Unfolder also provides some features to help you reshape flaps more efficiently:

• Copy the shape of a selected flap to the clipboard by choosing Edit ▸ Copy Flap Shape (⌘C) or clicking the button in the inspector.
• Paste the shape to selected flaps by choosing Edit ▸ Paste Flap Shape (⌘V) or clicking the button in the inspector.
• Switch the values of the left angle and right angle by choosing Edit ▸ Mirror Flap Shape (⌘R) or clicking the button in the inspector.

Optimize Flap Shape

It's important to choose an appropriate shape for flaps because they would collide when gluing if they are too large. You can turn on the Flap Targets option in the display settings to check if any flap has problems. In most cases, you don't need to fix the problems by hand. Unfolder provides you a feature to automatically optimize the flap shape to avoid the collision:

1. Choose Edit ▸ Automate ▸ Optimize Flap Shape, or click the button on the toolbar and choose Optimize Flap Shape to open the settings panel.
2. Choose the flap height you want. This value is a maximum value, the height of some flaps could be set to a smaller value if it leads to the collision.
3. Click the Optimize button.

The optimization only applies to the selected flaps. If nothing is selected, it applies to all the flaps.