Components & Libraries
The browser is the top zone of the left panel, and it is what you open a component from. Two tabs share it: Components, the definitions this design owns, and Libraries, everything it can place but not edit. Clicking a name opens that component — the viewport shows it on its own, and the inspector fills with it.
The tab strip
A tab carries a count when there is something behind it, and Libraries counts libraries, not
their components: a catalog of three libraries holding forty components reads Libraries 3,
since three is what the tab opens onto. Both tabs are always there.
The + adds to the tab you are looking at, and only Components has one — a library is a file beside the design rather than something you make here. Each tab keeps its own scroll position, and the tab you pick stays picked as you move between components.
Components
One row per definition this design owns; a design with none reads (none).
A small dim star trails the root — the definition the file designates and the one that exports. It is a marker rather than a button. The star that sets the root is in the Inspector header, which is also where a definition is renamed and deleted.
The + creates an empty component named component (component2, and so on, when that name
is taken) and opens it, so the header’s name field is the next thing under your cursor. The new
component is not made the root.
Opening a component reframes the viewport on it, clears the selection inside it, returns the active layer to the stack’s base layer, and shows every layer again. Editing does none of that: the Layers visibility you set survives everything but a change of component.
Libraries
One collapsible group per library, Built-ins first and the rest by name. Built-ins ships
with the app. Every other group is an .exw file sitting in the folder beside the design you
opened, declaring a library identity of its own — the group header carries that library’s
@version, and its full identity is on the tooltip. Two versions of one library are two groups,
which is what tells apart components that share a name.
A dimmed header is a library loaded from the folder that this design does not use, and its tooltip says so. That state answers which files have to travel with the design when you share the folder. Placing a component from a library is what undims it; opening one to look at it does not, since looking at a component is not placing it.
A library component is read-only. Opening one shows its parameters, computed values and pins with no edit controls, and the tools do nothing in the viewport while it is open. You use one by placing it, from the toolbar’s Add component picker (Toolbar & tools) — which lists the dimmed libraries too, since picking from one is what creates the reference.
When the last file you opened had something to report about its libraries, the status bar’s
⚠ N library warnings readout carries it: a library file that changed since this design was
last saved — re-save to clear it — or one beside the design that could not be read and that this
design does not need.
See also
- Components, parameters & pins — definitions, the root, and what each built-in component is.
- Inspector — where the open component is renamed, re-rooted and deleted.
- Toolbar & tools — the Add component picker that places what this browser lists.
- Window & panels — the zone’s place in the frame, and the status-bar readouts.