1. User interface

1.1. Views and editors

This view is situated in the upper left corner of the application. The navigation view presents every task in a tree hierarchy. You may navigate through the tree to find elements of your task by using keyboard arrows or the mouse.

1.1.2. Editors

The central part contains all editors. In the editors you can find and change detailed information for an object in the task.

1.1.3. Relocation

Editors may be moved to other locations in the application at will by clicking the mouse on the tab on top of the editor. By holding the mouse key down you can move the editor to the wanted spot using the mouse.

1.1.4. Graphics view

The graphics view occupies the upper, central part. All objects in your task which has a graphical representation are shown in this view. You may navigate in this view using the mouse.

You can zoom in and out by using the mouse scroller which is a coarse zoom method. You can also zoom in and out by holding both the left and right buttons down on the mouse and moving the mouse back and forth. This last method is a much more fine tuned zoom approach typically used when you are close to the object you want to study.

Setting rotation point

You can set the rotation wherever you want by hitting Ctrl+R, or clicking the image icon in the graphics toolbar, and then click at the point where you want the rotation point to be.

Create measurement lines

To add points in a measurement line hold the Ctrl+Alt keys and click where you want to measure lengths.

The color legend

The colors represents the tension normalized against the tension capacity for the slender elements - so that a value of 1 is at max capacity.
You can change the minimum and maximum values of the legend from the View menu in the graphics view (Select the Set legend range item).
Typically if the slender elements always are shown as red (max capacity) changing the maximum value to something higher will give a better color distribution representing the capacity.

1.2. Running simulations

1.2.1. Console

There is a console view to show messages from physics engines when running simulations (or show messages when running other external processes).

1.2.2. Status and Progress views

In the lower left corner there is a status view which shows all errors and warning in your workspace. You may double-click a message to show all information. There is also a progress view which shows all running processes.

You may stop a process by clicking the red square to the right of the progress bar.

1.3. Toolbars and key short-cuts

Some of the actions are available from the toolbar menus. Many of the actions are also available through keyboard short-cuts (press Ctrl+Shift+L to get the list of short-cuts). The most prominent keyboard short-cut is Ctrl+N which opens a wizard where you can create a new object.

There are essentially two types of hyperlinks. One is normal hyperlinked text which brings you to an editor or any other place. The other type is hidden hyperlinks. These are hidden in the sense that they do not appear as hyperlinks until hovered over by the mouse. Typically in an editor there might be a reference to another object which has it’s own editor. By holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the mouse on it you open the editor connected to the object you clicked.

1.5. Pop-up menus

By right-clicking objects (i.e. in the navigator) you get the available actions (given the present context) in a pop-up menu. Typical actions are:

  • New \- which gives you the ability to create new objects suitable in the given context.

  • Edit \- which opens the editor for the given object.

  • Dependencies \- which show all objects the given object is dependent on (Show dependencies) and also shows all objects that depend on the given object (Show dependents). From both these lists you may navigate to the editor of any object by selecting it from the list.

  • Rename \- which let’s you rename the given object to a new valid name.

  • Export \- which let’s you export data.

  • Import \- which let’s you import external data into your model.

  • Cut / Copy / Paste / Delete \- which works as you might expect.

  • Import > from clipboard \- which let’s you paste data from the clipboard into the application.

  • Fly to \- which navigates to the given object in the 3D graphics view (The 3D graphics view must be opened and the given object must have a graphical representation for Fly to to appear in the pop-up menu).

Special actions in pop-up menus:

  • Open 3D View \- When opening the pop-up menu on the task object in the navigator you will get the opportunity to open the 3D view - if the given task type has a 3D graphical view (a Post Processor task does not have any 3D graphical view, for instance).

  • Explore \- If you are opening the pop-up menu from the task object and choose the explore action, a file explorer is opened showing the files in the workspace. If you open the pop-up menu from any of the conditions in your task and choose the explore action, a file explorer is opened showing the files in the folder for the given condition in your workspace.

1.6. Selection

When you choose to Left-Click an object in the navigator or in the 3D graphics view you select that object. This has the following implications:
Selecting an object in the navigator highlights the same object in the graphics view (if the object has a graphical representation).
Selecting an object in the graphics view highlights the same object in the navigator.
Opening a new editor or entering an already opened editor does not necessarily change the selection. But you may set the selection to the object presented by the editor by clicking the Select me button in the upper right corner of the editor.

1.7. Finding objects

There are several ways to find an object in your workspace:

1.7.1. Find Object Of Type

The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+T opens a dialog window where you select the type of object you are looking for (a body for instance) and then get a list of available objects of that type. Both for finding the type and the objects of the given type you may enter text to filter out what you are looking for in the field above the list. You may use wildcards to help finding a type or an object (* for any string and ? for any character) in combination with plain text. Also observe that the scope for this search is your workspace. To help you get an object from the correct task there is task information at the bottom of the dialog which displays the name of the task the given object is part of.

image

1.7.2. Find Named Object

The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+N opens a dialog window where you can search for a named object by typing in it’s name. This dialog gives a list of matches which will decrease as you type the name. As for the Find Object Of Type dialog you may filter your search in the field above the list.

image

1.8. Change object in an editor

There are several ways to change the content of an editor:
Set Editor Object \- Ctrl+Shift+O inside an editor enables you to switch to another object of the same type as the editor represents.

image

Next Object / Previous Object \- Ctrl+Shift+ArrowDown and Ctrl+Shift+ArrowUp changes the content of the editor to the next object or the previous object in the list of available objects of this type in the given task.

1.9. Tables

There are a lot of tables in the editors. These are either a display of a set of properties for the given object or a list of items in the given object. Tables representing a list of items has buttons connected to it at the bottom of the table. These buttons represent (from left to right):

image New item (Copy selected item)
This action adds a new item to the list. If the table represents high level objects, like bodies for instance, the selected item in the list is used as a template to create the new object. If on the other hand the table represents a list of characteristics items or other low level lists in a high level object, the new item is created after the selected item in the list and the selected item is used as a template.

image Remove item
This action removes the selected item from the table.

image Remove all items
This action removes all items from the table.

image Move item up (in the list)
This action moves the selected item in the table up one row.

image Move item down (in the list)
This action moves the selected item in the table down one row.

image

1.10. Units

There is a built-in unit engine that converts between the internal SI-base unit representation and the user interface. UI units is configured via preferences. There is currently only support for switching between the most common units, but supports for others can easily be added if needed. Switching a display unit in the preferences will not change the underlying data, which will always be given in the base unit.

Holding the mouse over a value will display a tool-tip with description, current value and unit.

1.11. Preferences

There are several settings you can change in the Tools > Preferences menu. For instance you can change units, SIMO/RIFLEX memory usage and whether fly to should include an actual flying animation or not.