User Guide

Overview

The canvas is the shared scene. Frames, texts, wall numbers and logos sit above the exhibition wall; the wall sits above the general background. Sizes are real-world values: frame kit and photo opening are shown in centimetres, moulding, rebate and mat margins in millimetres.

The main safety rule is simple: adding or deleting another frame or wall must not move already arranged frames and walls.

Photo upload

When one photo is loaded, it goes into an empty frame first. If the selected frame already contains a photo, BAGETKA duplicates/creates a new frame and loads the photo there. Existing photos are not overwritten silently.

When several photos are loaded, empty frames are filled first. New frames are created only when there are more photos than empty frames.

Without a wall, newly created frames are placed in a line with a 20 mm gap. On a selected wall, they are centred on the wall hanging axis and distributed evenly. If the group is wider than the wall, it remains centred and extends beyond both sides; the view is fitted so the result is visible.

Frame Format And Photo Opening

In BAGETKA, frame format means the kit size: mat board, glass and backing board. It is not the finished outer size of the framed work.

The frame rebate is always 5 mm on each side. Example: for a 300 x 400 mm kit and 20 mm moulding, the visible inner frame window is 290 x 390 mm, and the finished outer frame size is 330 x 430 mm.

The photo size shown in the footer and specification is the visible photo opening. If a fixed frame format is selected, a real photo is fitted as large as possible without cropping and without changing its proportions; the remaining area becomes mat margins.

Moulding Catalog

Besides the black, wood and white colours, a frame can get a real moulding: the texture of a sample photo wrapped around the frame at real scale, with the moulding's own width, profile height and rebate. The Russian guide has the full illustrated walkthrough (Каталог багетов); this page is the short English version.

Where to find it. In the Baguette block press Moulding catalog... (under "No frame"), or open Edit → Moulding catalog... (also Edit → Add moulding from photo...). On a phone: Edit (bottom bar) → the Frame tab → Moulding catalog.... Select the frames first: a chosen moulding is applied to the selected frames.

What you get. The frame takes the texture, the width becomes fixed by the moulding (the width slider turns grey), thickness and depth to the passepartout come from the profile, and the frame size and the specification follow the moulding's rebate. The specification names the moulding and its article number.

Plans

• Free: your own mouldings from photos (kept in this browser), save them to a file and load them back.
• Advanced: the shared catalog (needs a key) and folder auto-save; 2 devices per key.
• Pro: also a personal catalog on our server (up to 50 mouldings and 20 MB per key); 5 devices per key.

Adding your own moulding from a photo

1. Press + Add a moulding from a photo and choose a photo of the moulding shot from above (a straight piece or a corner).
2. Drag a rectangle on a straight part across the moulding, from the outer edge to the inner one, and a few centimetres along it. Say on which side of the selection the outer edge (the wall side) is.
3. Enter the name or article number and the dimensions from the moulding's catalog: A visible width (required), B profile height, C rebate width (how far it overlaps the picture; 5 mm if empty), D rebate depth. The diagram shows where each one is.
4. Press Add and apply to the selected frames. A low-resolution warning only means the texture will look soft when enlarged.

Signing in with a key

The shared catalog, folder auto-save and the personal catalog open with a key (emb_..., sent by e-mail after payment): paste it into Have a key? in the catalog window and press Sign in with a key. The key is bound to your devices (Advanced 2, Pro 5); if the limit is reached, the window lists the devices so you can press Release on one you no longer use. Signing in lasts 30 days on a device and works up to 24 hours without a connection. The key itself is not stored in the browser. The key must include the site artsnet.store to work in the app.

Where your mouldings are kept

• In the browser (every plan): no setup, but they disappear if you clear the site data, in a private window and on another device.
• In a file (every plan): Save to a file / Load from a file.
• In a folder (Advanced and Pro; Chrome or Edge on a computer, not in an embedded window): Choose a folder...; every change is written to a file in it automatically.
• On our server (Pro): new mouldings from the form go there automatically; Send my mouldings to the server moves the ones from the browser. Before the first upload you are asked to agree; see the privacy policy (in Russian). Mouldings on the server are deleted 90 days after the key expires or is revoked; press × on a card to delete one at any time.

Projects and sharing

Your own mouldings (browser, file, folder, server) travel inside the project file, so anyone can open the project. A moulding from the shared catalog does not: on a device without catalog access its frame shows grey until the person signs in with a key. To send such a project to someone without a key, add the moulding as your own.

Embedded windows

In a window embedded on another site the key is already part of the embed code, so visitors sign in to nothing. The shared catalog is shown when the site's plan includes it; saving to a file works, a folder and the personal catalog on the server do not.

If something does not work

• No Moulding catalog... button: open the Baguette block (it is collapsed for new visitors) or use the Edit menu.
• A moulding was not applied: no frame was selected.
• "Maximum number of devices": release one in the list below the message.
• A frame is grey after opening a project: the moulding comes from the shared catalog; sign in with a key or add it as your own.

Mat Board

Mat margins are measured from the visible inner frame window to the photo opening, not from the outer kit edge. With a 300 x 400 mm kit, 5 mm rebate and 5 mm mat margins, the visible photo opening is 280 x 380 mm.

By default, the bottom mat margin is kept slightly larger than the top margin when the photo is fitted automatically.

Multiple Frames

Use the Frames block to add one or several frames. The currently selected frame controls the left-side settings and the footer values. If several frames are selected, shared settings are applied to all selected frames.

On desktop, dragging frames shows snap guides for edges, centres and corners. Wall-based dimensions are calculated per wall: frames on one wall must not create placement dimensions on another wall.

When a horizontal row contains a compact multi-frame block, automatic spacing and vertical alignment treat that block as one unit with one outer bounding box. Manual editing inside the block is still allowed.

Exhibition Wall And Background

The Wall block adds an exhibition wall below frames and above the background. The default wall is 4 x 3 m, white, with a 1550 mm hanging axis. When walls are present, the general background is rendered slightly greyer than the walls.

Several walls can be added. + Wall adds a new default wall into free space inside the currently visible canvas area, selects it immediately, and gives it a primary wall number automatically — no separate checkbox or button is needed for numbering. Width, height and hanging-axis height are editable fields. Wall edges can also be dragged with the mouse.

Shift + click selects several walls: if a wall is not selected it is added, and if it is already selected it is removed. With several walls selected, width, height, hanging-axis and color fields apply to all selected walls. In move mode (M), selected walls move together with their wall-owned frames, primary numbers and labels. Holding M enables temporary moving only while dragging.

A wall can have only one primary number: it can be edited, styled and hidden, but it cannot be moved to another wall or duplicated. Hide all numbers hides primary wall numbers only, without touching additional labels.

+ Text creates an additional wall label and opens the shared text editor. Additional labels can contain any text, be copied, deleted, moved to another wall or dragged outside walls to become free text on the background.

Wall photo modes repeat the background logic: colour, photo, fit, tile, stretch and tile scale. In tile mode, the scale slider changes the tile size.

As soon as one wall exists, the scene also gains a perspective hall around it — see Pseudo 3D below.

A row of tabs appears right above the canvas as soon as one wall exists — one per wall, labelled with the wall's own number and width (e.g. "2 (4m)"), ordered left to right to match their actual position on the canvas, SketchUp-scene-tab style. Clicking a tab selects that wall and fits the view to it.

Pseudo 3D

Pseudo 3D is a one-point perspective hall (floor and ceiling receding to a shared vanishing point) that appears behind and around the flat exhibition walls as soon as at least one wall exists on the scene. It is not an interactive, camera-rotatable 3D scene — the viewing angle is fixed, like an architectural rendering — but it gives a much better sense of depth than a flat backdrop when presenting a layout to a client.

Toggle it from the View menu: the Pseudo 3D checkbox is enabled automatically once a wall exists, and disabled (with a "add an exhibition wall first" hint) when there are none. Turning it off keeps every wall, frame and size exactly the same — only the surrounding floor/ceiling backdrop disappears.

Where a wall's centre does not sit exactly on the shared vanishing point, its real thickness (a fixed 300 mm) becomes visible as a side-face wedge, lit brighter on the side facing the light and flat-shaded on the other, plus a soft floor reflection under the wall. These are visual-only and do not affect the specification or any size field.

Dragging a wall (M) up/down moves it deeper into or closer out of the hall (visual scale only, real width/height/area stay the same); left/right still moves its on-canvas position as usual, and snapping to other walls' edges/centres/hanging line still applies on that axis. An extra snap also kicks in when the dragged wall's corner lines up with another wall's corner along the same ray from the shared vanishing point ("perspective line") — useful for lining up walls that recede consistently even at different depths; the guide line is drawn at that ray's own angle instead of straight.

The Background block's Background wall height (m) field (height of the virtual hall wall) is only active while Pseudo 3D is on. The same block's Light intensity slider also dims the Pseudo 3D backdrop photo, not just the flat no-wall background.

Do not confuse this with the separate 3D frame parameters block (moulding depth, shelf, glass and mat bevel) — that one is about the depth of the frame profile itself, a different subsystem that has nothing to do with the exhibition hall.

Specification

The specification lists project positions, kit format, visible photo opening and finished outer frame size. The kit format is mat/glass/backing; the outer size is calculated from kit, rebate and moulding width.

When walls are used, the summary includes exhibition running metres. The note for mat margins follows the same rule as the canvas: margins are measured from the visible inner frame window.

The TZ-format specification adds two extra blocks when relevant. Photo wallpaper lists every background photo actually in use — the shared canvas background and any per-wall photo — with a preview, the source filename, its size in millimetres and its fit mode; it is omitted entirely when no photo background is set anywhere in the project. Construction (Застройка) lists wall count, running metres along the front hanging side, and total wall area (front + back + side edges, using the same 300 mm wall thickness that produces the side face in Pseudo 3D) — useful for a hall build-out estimate separate from the frames themselves. Note: as of this writing these two blocks are only labelled in Russian in the exported specification, regardless of the guide language.

3D Frame Parameters

In development. This block describes an upcoming feature that will ship in a future update of the constructor and is not available in the current version yet. If you need depth for the exhibition hall with walls right now, that's a separate, already-working feature — see Pseudo 3D above.

This is a separate block from Pseudo 3D: it is about the depth of the moulding profile itself, not the exhibition hall. It will set the profile face width, shelf depth, rebate gaps, glass and backing thickness, bevel angle and related values, giving a volumetric reference for the frame's own cross-section rather than a flat rectangle. The exact set of fields can change before release.

A full interactive 3D preview of the frame is still being developed. Until it ships, use the flat layout and the numeric parameters of this block as the specification for the workshop — the 3D view will be a reference, not a substitute for a production drawing, so confirm final millimetres with the framing workshop.

Save And Export

Save writes the JSON project. If a JSON project is already opened or saved and the browser still has access to that file, Save writes changes back to the same file and shows a short “Changes saved” notice. New projects or browsers without file access ask for a new JSON project file.

Save as... opens a submenu: Save image..., Save project..., Batch processing..., Specification.... Export... opens Export (PNG) and Export layers (PSD).

The Save project dialog sequence is: Project (JSON), Project (JPG), Framed Works (JPG), Excel Specification (xlsx), Insurance (unavailable), Exhibition HTML (print / PDF) (unavailable).

Framed Works (JPG) exports each project work separately, cropped to the frame outline, with frame styling and without the external wall shadow. The source photo name receives the _bagetka suffix.

Excel Specification (.xlsx) can be saved separately or inside the project ZIP package. It contains the table of frames, walls and materials. Frame photos are currently not embedded in the Excel file so the workbook opens reliably in Excel and LibreOffice. Use Framed Works (JPG) or the HTML specification when image previews are needed.

Batch processing works only with one configured template frame in the project. If several frames are present, BAGETKA shows a warning with an OK button before the process starts. After a successful batch run, the modal closes and the footer shows a short completion notice with the file count.

PNG/JPG export saves the full visible canvas area between the side panels, including walls, wall numbers, wall labels, scene text, logo and dimensions. If the side panels are hidden, the full available canvas is exported. PSD uses the same visible canvas area; the wall is included in the flat visual result, not as a separate Wall layer.

Desktop Hotkeys

On macOS, use Cmd instead of Ctrl for global shortcuts. Hotkeys are disabled while typing in input fields. Zoom and pan change only the working view and are not stored in Undo / Redo.

Glossary

Frame kit format: the mat, glass and backing size. Rebate: the 5 mm overlap of the frame on each side. Inner frame window: the visible opening after rebate. Mat margin: the distance from the inner frame window to the photo opening. Exhibition wall: the wall plane that frames hang on. Primary wall number: the unique wall-bound number assigned by creation order. Wall label: an additional editable text object that can stay on a wall or become free text.