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A tour of the window

  • Title bar. On Windows and Linux the application bar is the window’s title bar. On the left: the File menu (New, Open, Save, Save As, Export…), undo and redo, the Home tab (the start page) and one tab per open design (each with its own undo history, selection and camera; a dot marks unsaved changes). On the right: Report a bug, Help (?), Preferences (which hold the theme) and the window’s buttons.
  • Toolbar. The workspace switcher (DESIGN) sits on the left. The tabs (SOLID, SURFACE, SHEET METAL, PLASTIC, UTILITIES, and SKETCH while you sketch) hold panels of commands. Click a panel’s name for all its commands. Drag a command from the dropdown onto a panel’s label or empty space to append it; the insertion line shows its destination. Drop onto an existing button to insert before it. Buttons can also move between panels, and the layout is saved.
  • Browser (left). The design as a tree: document settings and units, named views, the origin, bodies, sketches, construction planes, canvases, joints and components. The eye shows or hides an item, a component’s radio button makes it the active component, and right-clicking any row gives that item’s menu. Rows drag into groups and other components.
  • Viewport. Click to select, Shift or Ctrl to add, drag for a window or crossing box. To reach something under something else (two lines drawn on top of each other, coincident points, an edge in front of a face, overlapping bodies), hold the left button still for half a second (long-press on a touch screen) or right-click › Select Other…: a list of everything under the cursor opens there, the sketch being edited first. Hovering a row lights it up; clicking it selects it (Shift or Ctrl adds), and in a command’s dialog it goes to the active selection box. Esc or a click elsewhere closes the list. Clicking again on the same spot, with nothing changed in between, selects the next thing in that list. The wheel zooms at the cursor, the middle button pans and right-drag orbits freely (the mouse preset in Preferences switches to SolidWorks, Inventor, Alias, Blender, Tinkercad, OpenSCAD or Touchpad style). On a trackpad, pinch zooms and two-finger scroll pans (Navigation › Two-finger scroll pans; off: scroll zooms like the wheel); mouse wheels zoom and the thumb wheel pans sideways. Shift+middle orbits freely in the default and Inventor presets. In every preset, Ctrl+left drag (Cmd on macOS) that starts on empty space orbits; a Ctrl+click still adds to the selection. Shift+right-drag snaps to the nearest standard or diagonal view; Shift does not request snapping when the preset already requires it to orbit. With Touchpad selected in Preferences › Navigation, hold Shift and move the pointer to pan, or hold Alt (Option on macOS) and move it to orbit—no mouse button is needed. Vertical two-finger scrolling zooms in this preset, regardless of the saved two-finger pan setting; switching presets restores that setting. Release the modifier to stop navigating. Shift+click and Shift+left-drag still select. Combined Shift+Alt or Ctrl/Cmd modifiers do not start pointer-only navigation. The axis view shows the world’s X/Y/Z directions in SolidCraft’s colors. Click a signed axis tip to look along that axis; click the aligned tip again to look from the opposite side. Drag the axis view to orbit around the view centre, with Shift for snapping. Top and bottom keep the nearest quarter-turn heading. The house, the navigation bar’s Home button and a middle-button double-click in the view go home, framing what is shown now (Navigation › Middle double-click can make it Fit, which keeps the orientation, or turn it off). Right-click for the marking menu: eight commands around the cursor, plus a menu for whatever is under it. Near the window’s bottom or right edge a menu opens above or to the left of the cursor, so it stays in view. Shaded views omit certified smooth joins between spline spans on extruded walls. Real creases, cap outlines and authored face splits remain visible. Wireframe retains its edge presentation, and hiding a join does not remove its CAD identity or change the exported solid. Unsupported or uncertain wall geometry keeps its existing edge presentation.
  • Dialogs dock on the right with a live preview. Most features also show drag handles and a value box in the viewport.
  • Timeline (bottom). Every feature in order. Double-click to edit, drag the marker to roll back, and drag features to reorder them.
  • S box. Press S anywhere for a command search at the cursor. Pin the commands you use most to its top.

Preferences (File › Preferences) hold the theme, the units of new designs, the mouse preset, the visual style and autosave. Graphics › Colour vision gives the colours that carry a meaning (sketch states, axes, bends, analyses, icons) values for a weak red, green or blue sense: Protan, Deutan or Tritan. In a mode, the faces Draft and Accessibility Analysis mark as failing are striped too. Help › Keyboard Shortcuts lists every key, and File › Keyboard Shortcuts changes them.

Navigation › Smooth wheel zoom is on by default. Turn it off to apply each wheel or trackpad event immediately, with no smoothing tail. It is independent of Animate view changes, which controls axis views, Look At, Home and Fit. Re-enabling smoothing during a wheel gesture takes effect after that gesture ends, avoiding leftover zoom being replayed.

Navigation › Alias uses Alias’s camera keys: Shift+Alt+left drag orbits, Shift+Alt+middle drag pans and Shift+Alt+right drag zooms (drag down to move away, up to move closer). Without Shift+Alt, a left drag still selects with a box and drags sketch geometry.

Some Linux desktops take Alt+drag for themselves (moving or resizing windows), so the viewport never sees it. To free it:

  • KDE Plasma: System Settings › Window Management › Window Behavior › Window Actions, set Modifier key to Meta (or None).
  • GNOME: run gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences mouse-button-modifier '<Super>' (or set Tweaks › Windows › Window Action Key to Super).

Shift-orbit snapping includes 45-degree edge views and isometric corner views, with a lightly damped spring transition and a small boundary margin to prevent flicker.

On desktop, Ctrl/Cmd+Plus (or Equals) enlarges the interface, Ctrl/Cmd+Minus reduces it, and Ctrl/Cmd+0 restores 100%. These shortcuts update the UI scale preference. The UI scale slider in Preferences applies the new layout when released, so it stays still while dragging.