## Switching between a 9-piece element and a single-piece element

Some components can be either 9-piece bitmap graphics or individual single-piece svg graphics. The 9-piece component consists of four corner graphics, four side graphics, and a center graphic. You can design the corner graphics individually. The side and center area graphics can be tiled or equal the maximum size of the component area.
Slice a component into nine pieces:

- In the Editor, right-click a screen component and select Switch to 9-Piece element.
- The Action confirmation window opens and prompts you to confirm if the image can be sliced and converted into a bitmap image, if required.
- If you want Carbide.ui to remember your decision, mark the checkbox.
- Click OK.

Figure: Switch to 9-piece element
Note: In the Layers view, you see that the image is sliced into a component consisting of nine parts.
Note: If you now edit the center area graphic and reduce its size, the image is automatically tiled to be the size of the center area.
Switch back to a single-piece element:

- In the Editor, right-click the icon and select Switch to Single-Piece element.
- The Replace confirmation window opens and prompts you to confirm if the image can be replaced with the current visible image.
- If you want Carbide.ui to remember your decision, mark the checkbox.
- Click OK.

Figure: Switch to single-piece element
In the Layers view, you see that the image consists of a single part.
Note: If you paste into the clipboard a selection of 9 image files , for example from file system, the images can then be pasted into a 9-piece element in a single step. The first file is 'top-left' piece in the 9-piece element, the second piece is 'top-middle', the third is 'top-right', fourth is 'middle-left', fifth is 'middle-center', and so on. So the default order is from left to right, from top to bottom. This makes the ninth piece the 'bottom-right' piece.