Start a model
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These settings are only for DetailCraft, and you can change them only here, in the app.
Loading the menu styles…
What Beam, Column, Brace and Plate start with: W16x26 or IPE300 beams, W12x50 or HEB200 columns, HSS6x6x1/4 or HEA160 braces (the EN catalog here has no hollow sections yet), A36 or S355 plates. Members already placed keep their own.
Duplicate (Ctrl+D) puts the copy this far from the original. Pasting from the keyboard starts with this offset too; a click on a grid intersection puts the copy there instead.
A connection comes along only when every member it joins is copied.
Hide them to see holes and plates in a busy joint. The bill of materials, drawings and exports always list them.
With the lasso, press and drag draws a freehand line round what you want. Dragging to the right first takes what is wholly inside, to the left what it touches; Space while dragging switches between inside, touching and a fence (what the line crosses).
In the 3D view. The view cube sits at the top right: click a face, edge or corner to look from there, drag it to orbit, drag the compass ring to turn the model. The axis icon is a small X, Y, Z marker at the bottom left.
Drawings and shop drawings are made on this sheet, landscape. A bigger sheet draws at a larger scale; the text stays the same size. The Drawings and Shop drawing windows can change it too.
Automatic writes imperial sizes when every member is an AISC shape, else metric. Imperial gives plates and bolts to the nearest 1/16 in. Lengths are always millimeters, as the KISS standard asks.
How ASTM bars are named on screen and in the bending schedule, and which shape codes the schedule prints. BS 4449 bars are always H8 to H40. Choosing European steel makes new footings use BS bars.
Workspace
From add-ons and files
A layout is a .ccworkspace.json file: data only, read as untrusted. It arranges the same building blocks in every app; each app fills them with its own tools. Drop a .ccworkspace.json file here to import it.
Every app that has the workspace you pick opens in it; the others keep their toolbar and panels. Your toolbar style, menus and keys stay as they are.
Work environments. Save your whole setup under a name (the layout, menu style and keys, toolbar, panels and My tools, for every app) and switch between setups. The theme and the language stay as they are.
Lost a toolbar, a menu or a panel?
Puts the toolbar (order, lock and buttons), the panels, the screen mode and the menu style back to how DetailCraft starts. Your theme, language, sizes and DetailCraft's own settings stay as they are.
The theme applies to every CadCraft app and the site.
The language applies to every CadCraft app. The app reloads to change it.
Global settings: each app can have its own measurement settings and defaults too.
Switch a unit on to see it in the unit lists. The star marks the default for new drawings, measures and items. These choices are the same in every app in this browser.
Loading the units…
A file keeps its own unit (a drawing's units, a project's feet or meters), and that unit stays in its list even when it is turned off here.
Sharing your hardware specs allows us to build more efficient engines. The information is aggregated and not associated with your account: the graphics card, processor cores, memory and screen size, the browser and system family, and the app — no files, no name, no address.
Off: no app starts its tour by itself. Each app's own settings can still turn its tour off, or take it again.
Browsers allow full screen only after a click or key press, so it starts on your first click in the drawing.
On a touch screen (swipe the toolbar for more, or let it wrap)
Arrange: drag tools within their group, and drag a group by its name.
Right-click the toolbar (or long-press it) for Arrange, Lock and Reset.
Fingers on the drawing, once you use a pen here
With Only move the view, one finger on the drawing does nothing and two fingers move and zoom it. These choices are for this device, in every app. A pen is noticed the first time you use one here.
The bars, toolbars, panels and dialogs of DetailCraft, bigger or smaller; the drawing keeps its own zoom. Panel text size works on top of it.
Compact tightens the row heights, panel padding, toolbar buttons and panel text of DetailCraft, so more fits on the screen. A touch screen keeps its large targets either way.
You can also drag a panel's inner edge. Double-click the edge to put it back.
Panel widths apply when the panels sit beside the drawing (wider windows).
Drag a panel by its name to dock it left, right or at the bottom, or drop it over the drawing to float it. A new window can go on your other screen. Reset layout puts every panel back where it started.
Add-ons add features to DetailCraft. Switching one off takes effect at once; some need a reload to go completely.
Developer mode is on: add-ons that are not signed can load. Only use add-ons you trust.