Editing a lure

Outline

The top view of the lure. Mirrored about the centreline, so you edit one half and both update.

Side profile

The lure seen from the side: two curves, the back and the belly. The gap between them is the thickness flow.

Cross-section

One station across the lure, edge to edge. Use [ and ] to page through stations.

3D

The finished lure with its wire, hooks and ballast, shown at the angle it rests in the water. Useful for spotting a bump you cannot see in a single profile.

The quad view shows all four at once. Number keys switch views — see shortcuts. Phones do not get the quad view: four panes in that width leaves none of them usable, so a phone opens on the outline and switches between the single views instead.

Split view is the middle ground: two full-width panes, one above the other, each with a picker where its title would be — so you can put the outline over the side profile, or the outline over a cross-section, and read both at full window width. Picking the pane the other half is already showing swaps the two rather than doubling it up. The pairing is remembered between sessions. Split is a desktop layout only: halving the height of a tablet or phone window leaves two panes too short to work in, so the tab and its number key are not offered below 1024px wide.

With a mouse there is a shortcut that skips the tabs: double-click a pane title in the quad view to blow that pane up to the full viewport, and double-click the title again to drop back to quad. The controls in the title bar are unaffected — only the title itself switches views.

On a touch screen, outline and side profile are drawn nose-up whenever the pane is taller than it is wide — which on a phone held upright it is. A lure is several times longer than it is wide, so lying it across a narrow pane wastes most of the height; standing it up uses that height instead. Turn the phone sideways and the lure lies down again, because a wide pane already fits it the better way round. Nothing to set, and it never applies to the cross-section view, which is already the shape of its pane.

Right-click clear space in any 2D view and choose Set reference curveto capture its current curves. A faint copy stays underneath as you edit, revealing the original shape wherever the live curves move away. Choose the option again to replace the reference, or choose Clear reference curve to remove it. References are temporary: one lasts while its view stays open, is cleared when you move to another cross-section, and is never saved with the lure.

Turn on Tunni controls from the View menu, or right-click a 2D view and check Show Tunni controls, to adjust both handles of a curve segment together. Drag the amber dashed line to scale the handles together, or drag its diamond to adjust their balance and strength. The curve endpoints and tangent directions stay fixed. Double-click the diamond to balance the handles. Controls are hidden for degenerate geometry, and a drag holds its last valid shape while a handle would cross its endpoint. The setting applies to every 2D view and stays on as you switch views and cross-sections; each drag is one undo step. Controls appear only on the editable half of mirrored views.

The 3D pane has two modes, switched at its bottom right: Model, the lure as designed, and Water tank, described under Lure design. Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom.

X-ray

Shows the wire, ballast and pockets inside the body, so you can check where they sit against the outside shape.

Readout

The top left corner gives the length, depth and width in your chosen units, and the angle the lure rests at.

Drag a point to move it. Selecting one reveals its tangent handles: drag those to change how the curve leaves the point. Longer handles make a fuller curve; shorter ones tighten it.

Hovering a point or tangent enlarges it; selecting it turns it orange. Its exact X/Y position then appears in that pane's header, where you can type a value or use the number field arrows for unit-aware increments (5 mm, 0.5 cm, or 0.25 in). Corner points stay green and square so they remain distinct from smooth points.

Press Esc to clear a selected point or tangent handle. On a touch screen, tapping empty canvas does the same — it also releases a focused station.

Right-click a control point to fair its local curve, switch between smooth and corner, select either tangent, or delete it. On the outline and side profile the two tangents are named for the end of the lure they point at — tail and nose — so the labels still read true when a phone draws the lure nose-up. A cross-section has neither end nearer the nose, so its handles stay left and right. Right-click a tangent to collapse it to zero length; a selected collapsed tangent can be right-clicked again and extended so it is easy to grab. On a touch screen, press and hold in place for the same menu — holding still is what distinguishes it from a drag, so it will not interrupt one you have started.

Press Delete to remove the selected point. The curve re-fits through the remaining points.

Lock a point to keep the direction of its tangent handles while you work on their length. Select the point or one of its handles and click the padlock in the pane's header, press L, or right-click the point or a handle and choose Lock handle angles. A locked point shows a short bar across each locked handle's line.

A locked handle slides along its line: drag it anywhere and it only gets longer or shorter, so tuning how full a curve is can no longer tip its angle by accident. Drag it back through the point and it collapses to zero length rather than flipping round; drag it out again and it comes back the same way. On a smooth point the other handle keeps its own length and direction. With a locked handle selected, the pane header shows its length instead of X and Y: type a value, or use the arrow keys to step it. The sidebar Control point section shows its X and Y read-only, with the length below them.

The lock holds through the other point tools too. Fair curve sets new lengths along the locked directions, Extend handle grows a collapsed handle along its lock, and moving the point carries its handles with it. To lock handles level or upright, use the horizontal or vertical align buttons in the sidebar Control point section: aligning a locked point turns its lock with it. Resizing the lure scales the locks with the shape.

Locks are part of the lure. Locking and unlocking undo like any other edit, and locks are saved in Lure Builder's own .board.json files and share links.

You define cross-sections at particular stations; the surface between them is interpolated, so you do not need many. Add one where the shape needs to change character — at the widest point, say, or where the belly starts to rise — rather than at regular intervals.

Sections can be copied and pasted, which is the quickest way to hold a section shape constant through a stretch of the lure and then vary it deliberately.

Every station shows as a dashed vertical line in the outline and side profile views, with a diamond handle at each end. Click a handle to select the station — it turns orange — then drag it along the lure to reposition it. The position appears beside the handle as you drag, in your chosen units, and a station can never pass its neighbours, so the order never changes under you. The whole drag is a single undo step. Press Esc to release the handle.

Right-clicking a handle offers to add a station either side of it, or to delete it. For an exact position, type into the field beside the station counter in the cross-section pane header, or use its steppers — they nudge by a sensible amount for the current unit.

Moving a station carries its profile with it, so the surface between the neighbouring stations changes shape. That is deliberate: you are sliding a control station, not re-sampling the existing surface.

Every edit lands on a labelled undo stack — ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z. A drag is one step, not one step per pixel, so undo moves in the units you actually think in.

Your working lure is saved to this device continuously, so closing the tab and coming back restores it, along with the view you were in and the camera position. The one exception is the quad view on a phone, which is not offered there — a lure last left in it opens on the outline, and the stored preference is kept for the next time you open the editor on a bigger screen.