Hi, I used VSD some years ago, and have since forgotten it. I'm trying to get back up to speed, and not finding it as straightforward as I'd like! There's probably a simple solution to this, but I simply can't get the shapes tool to work for me. I click on the shapes tool button to the left, the box with the different shapes pops up, I select one and then go over to my page... when I click on the page, hold down my left mouse key and drag to put the shape in, there's a box that forms, but no shape in it. And then the box just goes away. What on earth am I doing wrong???
Thanks for any help!

No such thing as a silly question, but I'll try one anyway

Um, have you tried 'filling' the shape you are drawing with a different color?
It may be as simple as the fact that you are drawing a 'shape' in the same color as the background.

Let me know if you still need help...

Top left of VSD has a coloured box (usually white) change it to the colour you want all objects you add to be, using the eye dropper tool

Every object you add will then be that colour

Same answer as gunsmoke, different approach

More than 1 way to skin that cat (figuratively speaking...)

Yes, I've tried to see if it has something to do with background color... but there's a color I want both in the color box at top left and in the fill box if I click on that. Still no shape appearing. The strange thing is, I did get it to work a couple of times early on (some days ago, when I first started using the program), but now it won't work any more. I must have been doing something different then...
I do notice that when I click on a shape in the little shape box that pops up (so that it's highlighted), and then go click on a place on my page to put it in, the highlight always goes off. Could that be related? Am I supposed to double click something? Or click and drag from the box itself (but I tried that and it didn't help)? Or click my heels twice and say some magic words???
I really appreciate your help, if you can think of something...

Once you choose your shape, click and drag to create the shape. You should see a blue bounding box around it. If the blue box is there, go to fill and click on the little color swatch to open the color palette and choose a color.
If that doen't work, you may need to re-install VSD (are you using the latest version/build?).
If everything is up to date and you still have the problem, put in a support ticket so someone can get it sorted for you

Can you try an experiment for me

select the page tool, and down the bottom tick solid background colour

Change it temporarily to something like gold

You can change it back same way to white

now try the shapes tool and see what you get

I FIGURED IT OUT!!! Thanks so much everyone for chiming in on this. I discovered that if I click on the screen first (which is what I was doing), it doesn't work. But if I hit the left mouse button first, and THEN click on the screen, it does. So I think I'm OK now... good grief, go figure. But thanks again so much to all of you for trying to help me with this. You guys are awesome.