What the editor isCopy Anchor Link

Every project opens in the editor, at /p/ followed by the project's id. It shows one rack and what's in it, and everything about it updates as you edit: the 3D view, the front elevation, the checks, the bill of materials and the printed parts.

The fastest way to learn it is the editor tour. It takes about a minute and points at each area in turn.

You can start the tour from any open project: press ? at the right end of the toolbar. It also opens by itself when you open a project, until you finish it or close it once in that browser. Adding #tour to the end of a project's link starts it too.

The layoutCopy Anchor Link

The editor has five areas:

On a phone or a narrow window the areas stack and the page scrolls instead: the 3D view first, then Parts, then the cards.

SidebarsCopy Anchor Link

The two buttons at each end of the toolbar show and hide the sidebars. The keyboard does the same: Ctrl+B toggles the Parts sidebar and Ctrl+Alt+B the details sidebar (use Cmd on a Mac). To resize a sidebar, drag its inner edge, or focus the edge and use the arrow keys.

Each card in the details sidebar folds away when you click its title. Your browser remembers which sidebars are open, how wide they are and which cards are folded.

The cards in the details sidebarCopy Anchor Link

From top to bottom:

• The summary row. The rack's key figures, such as its hole pitch on a RackMate TL1, then the filament the printed parts need (in kg, an upper bound that assumes solid prints), then the figures other parts report. The last cell is Checks. It says "clear to print" when everything passes and "fix before printing" when something fails.
• Updates available. Shows up only when a part in the project has a newer published revision in the catalog. Preview lists what would change and Upgrade applies it. With more than one update, Upgrade all applies them all. See Entries and revisions.
• Inspector. The selected part. See The inspector.
• Front elevation. The rack's rails from the front. See Placing parts.
• Clearance checks and Problems. See Checks and problems.
• Rack layout. Every mount on the rails as a row you can edit. See Placing parts.
• Measurements. The values you can measure on your own hardware. See The inspector.
• BOM & quote. What to buy and what it costs. See BOM & quote.
• Printed parts. The STL files to print. See Exports and printing.
• rackparams.json. The project as JSON. See Exports and printing.
• History. Saved revisions, snapshots and restore. See Sharing and history.
• Credits. Whose work the project uses, with a link to all credits. See Licences and credits.

The toolbarCopy Anchor Link

From left to right:

• Project name. Click it to rename the project. Enter saves, Esc cancels. Names can be up to 80 characters.
• Project id. The 21-character id. It's all anyone needs to open and edit the project, so treat it like a password. On narrow windows it's hidden.
• Undo and Redo.
• Claim or Read-only link. Only shown when you're signed in. See Sharing and history.
• Copy link. Copies the project's link. Anyone with it can open and edit the project.
• Duplicate. Makes a copy of the project under your account and opens it. You need to be signed in.
• Export. Saves the project as a file. See Exports and printing.
• All projects. Goes back to the project list.
• ? Starts the editor tour.

On narrower windows the buttons show only their icons.

The status barCopy Anchor Link

The bar along the bottom shows:

• the sync state: connecting…, synced, saving…, saved, offline, newer values loaded or save failed (see Sharing and history)
• the project's name and id
• what's selected, or "nothing selected"
• how many parts are in the project and how much of the rails is in use
• the checks: "checks pass", or how many are failing and how many problems there are. Click it to jump to the checks.
• the quote's total, one amount per currency. Click it to jump to BOM & quote.
• your handle, when you're signed in

Keyboard shortcutsCopy Anchor Link

These work while a project is open, as long as you aren't typing in a field.

On a Mac, use Cmd instead of Ctrl.

Undo covers the edits you made in this browser tab. To go back further, or to undo someone else's change, use History.

If the 3D view doesn't startCopy Anchor Link

The 3D view needs WebGL. If your browser has it turned off, the view says "The 3D view could not start" and offers Try again. Everything else still works: you can place and edit parts from Parts, the elevation, the Rack layout card and the inspector.

NextCopy Anchor Link