Toolbar & tools - Experiware Guide

The toolbar is the strip above the viewport: the tools at the left, the options for whichever tool is active beside them, and at the right end the 2D/3D view switch and the Fab processes button. A tool decides what the left button does in the viewport — the camera stays on the other buttons, so no tool ever takes navigation away from you.

The tool strip

Six icon buttons, five of them always present, exactly one active. Hovering a button names the tool and its key (Draw channel — D), and each key behaves exactly like a click of its button.

A single click picks a tool for one use: it returns to Select as soon as one action completes. A gesture you cancel keeps the tool, so a mistake costs one click rather than the tool. Double-click a button to latch it — a push-pin appears beside it and it stays active after each use, until you press Esc or pick another tool.

The pointer is a crosshair under every tool but Select, where it stays an arrow: the shape says whether the next press creates something or selects it.

While you have a component from Libraries open, the tools remain pickable and a press does nothing — another file’s component is read-only.

Select — S

The home tool: click to select, drag to move, right-click for the context menu. It is the only tool with a menu. See Viewport & navigation.

Draw channel — D

Draws one channel between two terminals. The gesture has two forms, and both resolve each end the same four ways, in order:

a pin or a point — the channel connects to it;
another channel’s body — that channel is split at the click, and a new point between the halves becomes the junction;
a region’s wall — a wall-bound point is created on that edge and the channel breaks through there;
empty space — a new point is created there and connected.

Drag from the start and release on the end for a straight run. Or press and release without moving to anchor the start, then click each bend in turn: a click on a target finishes there, and a double-click or Enter finishes at the last bend you placed.

Backspace retracts the last bend, and Esc abandons the gesture. Releasing back onto the start cancels — there is no channel from a terminal to itself. While you are still dragging, a right-click drops a bend without ending the gesture.

The channel and everything the gesture created are one undo step.

Add point — P

Each click places a point at the cursor on the active layer, snapped to the grid when snapping is on. Keep the button down and drag to position it before you release; the placement and the nudge are one undo step.

Add component — C

Places an instance of the component picked in the options row, with the same press-and-drag behavior as Add point. With nothing picked the picker reads (pick) and a press places nothing.

Draw region — R

Two forms again. Drag to sweep out an axis-aligned rectangle, holding Shift for a square. Or press and release without moving to start a polygon: each click places a vertex, and the ring closes when you click the first vertex, double-click, or press Enter.

Backspace retracts the last vertex — the first one is the corner you pressed on and stays. Esc abandons the gesture.

Where you press decides what you draw: empty space a new region, inside a pocket a hole, inside a hole a pocket. Every vertex you place snaps — to a nearby vertex, else onto a nearby edge, else to the grid — and one placed on an existing wall welds to it. The chip at the cursor names what the release will make, or why it will not; see Regions & compartments.

A refused release commits nothing. The rectangle is dropped; a polygon stays in flight with its vertices intact, so the fix is one Backspace rather than the whole ring again.

Insert vertex — I

Contextual: the button appears, and the key works, only while a channel or a region is selected. Clicking inserts a vertex on the nearest segment of that shape, landing exactly on it — so nothing changes shape until you move it. Drag in the same press to position it straight away.

The options row

Beside the tools in the same row, and present only for a tool that takes input. Select, Add point and Insert vertex show nothing there.

Draw channel shows Width in µm. Drag the field to scrub it or type a value and press Enter; it will not go below 1 µm. It is the width given to each point the gesture creates, and channel ends inherit from their points, so it is the width the run comes out at. Like the grid pitch it is a preference rather than part of the design (Settings).

Add component shows the Component picker: your own components first, then each library under a dim heading that is a label rather than a choice. The component you have open is never listed — it cannot contain itself.

The view switch

The 2D / 3D pair right of the tools, with the view you are in shown pressed. It is the same switch as the Tab key and the View menu, and it sits on the toolbar rather than with the tools because it changes how you see the design, not what the next click does. See Viewport & navigation.

The Fab processes button

At the right end of the toolbar, opening the Fab processes window — the same window Design → Fab processes… opens. Its label is fixed rather than a readout: processes are a shared pool with nothing active about them, and which process a stack is built with is shown in the Stack window.

Keyboard shortcuts

Experiware Guide