Comments and Markers

Threaded review comments anchored to a drawing sheet, a specific symbol or a point on the canvas, with live updates for every collaborator on the same drawing.

Where it is

Open a drawing in the Draw editor. A comments button sits at the top-right of the canvas, badged with the number of unresolved comments on the current sheet. Click it to slide in the comments drawer. It only appears once the drawing has been saved and a sheet is active.

On the canvas itself, any symbol that has a comment shows a small badge with its unresolved count. Clicking a badge opens the drawer straight to that symbol's thread, without changing what is selected on the canvas.

Using the drawer

• Scope tabs. With a symbol selected, the drawer shows two tabs: Element (that symbol's thread only) and This sheet (every comment on the sheet). Selecting a different symbol switches the panel to its thread; clicking empty canvas falls back to the sheet view.
• Status filter — All / Open / Answered / Resolved / Closed / Reopened, each with a live count.
• Add Comment — starts a new thread. While a symbol is selected the new comment is anchored to it, so it reappears next to that symbol later; with nothing selected it is a sheet-level comment.
• Reply, Delete — on each thread. Only the author can edit or delete their own comment.

Comment pins

A comment pin is a comment placed at a point on the canvas instead of on a symbol. Use one to flag something that has no symbol to attach to, such as a missing drain, a clash between two lines, or a gap in a title block.

• Placing a pin. Click the pin button next to the comments button at the top-right of the canvas, then click the point you want on the canvas. The drawer opens with a new comment at that position. The comment is not attached to any symbol, even if one is selected. Press Esc, or click the pin button again, to cancel before you click. While the pin tool is on, you can still pan with the middle mouse button and zoom with the wheel to reach the spot. A click while the tool is on never changes the selection. Pick location in the new-comment form turns the pin tool back on so you can choose a different point.
• Reading pins. Each pin sits at its point and stays there as you pan and zoom. Its colour shows its status: blue for Open, amber for Answered and red for Reopened. Resolved (green) and Closed (grey) pins are faded, so the points still needing work stand out. A number on the pin is its reply count. Hover a pin to see who raised it and the start of the text.
• Opening a thread. Click a pin, or tab to it and press Enter, to open the drawer on the This sheet list with that thread outlined and scrolled into view. The status filter resets to All so the thread is not hidden.
• Sheets. A pin belongs to the sheet it was placed on and only appears on that sheet. Switching sheets cancels a pin you are still placing.
• Saving and live updates. A pin is saved as soon as you add the comment. It is still there after a reload, and it appears straight away for everyone else on the drawing.
• Hiding pins. Pins hide and show with the Comments layer in the Layers panel, like the symbol badges.

Symbol comments keep their badge on the symbol. Pins are only for comments that are not attached to a symbol.

Markups

Markups are review sketches drawn over the drawing: a revision cloud, a rectangle, an arrow or a freehand stroke. Use them to circle the area a comment is about or to point at something. Markups belong to the review, not to the design. Adding, moving or deleting one never changes the drawing, its save number, its revision or its bill of materials.

• Drawing a markup. The four markup tools sit to the left of the pin button at the top-right of the canvas. Click a tool, then drag on the canvas. A cloud or rectangle spans the drag, an arrow points from where you pressed to where you let go, and a freehand stroke follows the pointer. The markup is saved when you release the mouse, and the tool then turns off. A click without a drag draws nothing. Press Esc to cancel a drag, and Esc again (or click the tool again) to turn the tool off. While a tool is on, you can still pan with the middle mouse button and zoom with the wheel, and a drag never changes the selection. A markup tool and the pin tool cannot both be on: turning one on turns the other off.
• Reading markups. A markup stays in place as you pan and zoom, and its line width stays the same on screen. A markup on its own is drawn in red. A markup attached to a comment thread takes the thread's status colour, the same colours the pins use: blue for Open, amber for Answered, red for Reopened, green for Resolved and grey for Closed.
• The markup menu. Click a markup's line, or tab to it and press Enter, to select it. A small menu opens next to it:
  • Attach to a new comment opens the comments drawer with a new comment pinned at the centre of the markup. When you add the comment, the markup is attached to that thread.
  • Attach to an existing thread lists the threads on the sheet. Pick one to attach the markup to it.
  • Open the thread and Detach from the thread appear when the markup is already attached. Clicking an attached markup also opens its thread in the drawer.
  • Delete markup removes it.
  • Press Esc, click Close or click anywhere else to close the menu.
• Who can do what. Anyone on the drawing can draw a markup. Its author or the drawing's originator can attach, detach or delete it. If the server refuses an action, the reason shows at the top of the canvas.
• Sheets. A markup belongs to the sheet it was drawn on and only appears on that sheet.
• Live updates. A new, changed or deleted markup appears straight away for everyone else on the drawing, over the same live connection as the comments.
• Hiding markups. Markups hide and show with the Comments layer in the Layers panel.
• QA log. Adding, changing (moving, attaching, detaching) and removing a markup each add an entry to the QA log.

Over the API: GET /api/v1/markups/by-sheet/{sheetId}, POST /api/v1/markups, PUT /api/v1/markups/{id} (move or re-shape), PUT /api/v1/markups/{id}/comment (attach; commentId: null detaches) and DELETE /api/v1/markups/{id}. Geometry is stored in drawing (world) coordinates.

Comment status

Every thread carries a status badge and moves through one lifecycle:

Status	Meaning
Open	Raised and waiting for attention.
Answered	Someone has responded. The point still needs resolving.
Resolved	The point has been dealt with.
Closed	Signed off, with a closure note saying why.
Reopened	A resolved or closed thread brought back into play.

The thread's ⋯ menu only shows the actions you are allowed to take:

Action	Who can do it
Mark answered (from Open or Reopened)	Anyone on the drawing.
Resolve (from Open, Answered or Reopened)	The person who raised the comment, its assignee, or the drawing's originator (the person who created the drawing).
Close… (from any status except Closed)	The person who raised the comment or the drawing's originator. You must enter a closure note.
Reopen (from Resolved or Closed)	The person who raised the comment or the drawing's originator.
Assign… (any status except Closed)	The person who raised the comment or the drawing's originator. Pick a company member, or Unassigned.

If you try something the server refuses (for example, someone else already closed the thread), the reason shows on the thread.

Revision stamp. Each thread records the drawing's revision when it was raised and when it was closed, shown as "Raised on rev P02, closed on rev P03". If the drawing has no revision label yet, the stamp shows the drawing's save number instead ("save 7"). Comments raised before this feature have no stamp.

The unresolved count on the comments button and on the canvas badges includes Open, Answered and Reopened threads.

Comments that existed before the lifecycle was added keep their status if they were Resolved. All others are Open, including old Closed ones, because those have no closure note.

• Thread notifications — when a thread gets a reply, or is answered, resolved, closed (with its closure note) or reopened, the person who raised it and the drawing's originator are notified, except whoever did it. Assigning a thread notifies the new assignee. You can mute these under "comment replies and updates" in the notification centre, or turn off email in your preferences.
• Mentions — type @ in the comment box to search company members; picking one notifies them (see Notifications).
• Load more — threads load 50 at a time; the button shows how many of the sheet's total have loaded so far.

Comment badges on the canvas can be hidden from the Layers panel, like any other overlay (the Comments system layer).

Exporting the QA log

The QA log and comment register can be exported as a PDF (for presenting and filing) or as an Excel workbook (for working through the comments). Both carry a header block with the project, drawing number and title, the drawing revision and save version at the time of export, who exported it and when (UTC), and any filters applied. The PDF holds the comment register (thread number, raised by, raised on revision, status, assignee, closed on revision, closed by, closure note) followed by a transcript of every thread with its replies and status changes; deleted comments show as "[deleted]", and each page footer repeats the revision stamp with page numbers. The workbook has a "Register" sheet (one row per thread, with filter buttons and a frozen header), an "Events" sheet with the full event log, and an "Info" sheet with the header block. The export can be filtered by event type, actor, status and date range, the same way as the log. Over the API: GET /api/v1/drawings/{id}/qa-log/export?format=pdf|xlsx.

Live updates

Comments added, edited, deleted, assigned or moved to a new status by anyone else viewing the same drawing appear immediately — no refresh needed. If the live connection drops, a warning bar appears in the drawer, but comments can still be read and written through the regular save path while it reconnects.

QA log

The QA log button (clipboard icon, directly under the comments button at the top-right of the canvas) opens the drawing's quality record: every comment raised, replied to, edited, deleted, assigned or moved to a new status, every markup added, changed or removed, and every view issued or advanced. Each entry records who did it, their role, and the drawing's revision at that moment. The log only grows; nothing in it can be edited. It needs a saved drawing.

It has two tabs. The open tab is kept in the page address (?qa=timeline or ?qa=register), so a copied link reopens the log on the same tab.

• Timeline: the events grouped by day, oldest first. Each entry shows the person and their role, what happened, the status change (for example Open → Closed), the comment text or closure note, the time and the revision ("rev P02", or "save 7" when the drawing has no revision label). Entries load 50 at a time. Load more fetches the next 50. Clicking a comment entry opens that thread in the comments drawer and centres the canvas on it. If the thread is on another sheet, or is a sheet-level comment with no symbol, the log tells you where to find it instead.
• Register: one row per comment thread, showing the comment, who raised it, the revision it was raised on, its current status, its assignee, the revision it was closed on, who closed it and the closure note. A reopened thread clears its closed columns until it is closed again. Click a row to open the thread.

Filters. These apply to both tabs:

• Event type (Timeline only).
• Person: who did it on the Timeline, who raised the thread in the Register.
• Status: the status after the event on the Timeline, the thread's current status in the Register.
• From/To date.
• This revision only: the drawing's current revision, shown in the switch's label. On the Timeline it narrows the events already loaded, so use Load more to look further back.

Clear filters resets them all.

Refresh. The log reloads by itself when a comment on the open sheet changes. Use the refresh button to pick up changes on other sheets, and issues and status advances made by others.

Export. The Export button downloads the QA log as a PDF or the comment register as an Excel workbook, with the filters you have set (see Exporting the QA log).

Limits

• A comment can only be anchored to a symbol that is registered on the canvas. A sheet-level comment (added with Add Comment while nothing was selected) has no badge or pin on the canvas. It only shows up in the drawer's "This sheet" tab. To put a comment on the canvas without a symbol, use a comment pin. A pin placed exactly at the drawing origin (0, 0) is treated as a sheet-level comment.
• A pin on a page of the drawer that has not been loaded yet will not appear until Load more reaches it, the same as symbol badges.
• A badge for a comment on a page of the drawer that has not been loaded yet will not appear until Load more reaches it.
• Two members with the same display name cannot be told apart in an @mention — the mention still notifies the right person, but the text on screen is ambiguous.
• Renaming a user does not rewrite the @Name text already sitting in old comments.
• A markup cannot be moved or re-shaped in the editor yet: delete it and draw it again. The API accepts a move or re-shape from the markup's author only.
• A markup's colour cannot be picked yet. A markup on its own is always red.

See also

• Notifications — where a mention shows up outside the drawing
• Drawing and Connecting — selecting symbols to anchor a comment to