Appearance
Selection section
The top section of the sidebar, the panel on the right: what is currently picked, and what can be done to it.
It holds no command's own settings. Where a pick leads to a command, the button here opens that command's dialog over the viewport; the fields are there, next to the thing they are about. See the document tree for the other panel, and what belongs in each.
Select modes
Four buttons at the top of the section, on keys 1 to 4. They narrow what a click or a drag box may pick, in both views.
| Mode | Key | In the sketch | In the model |
|---|---|---|---|
| All | 1 | Points win over curves under the cursor | An edge wins over the face behind it, within 7 px |
| Vertex | 2 | Points only | Corners of the solid only, within 9 px |
| Edge | 3 | Lines and arcs only, so a line stays grabbable under a point | Edges of the solid only |
| Face | 4 | Clicking inside a closed profile selects its whole bounding loop | Faces of the solid only |
All is the default and is usually right. Reach for the others when something small is sitting on top of the one you wanted.
What the section reports
In priority order:
A picked corner of the solid. "Corner at x, y, z mm", to two decimals.
A picked edge of the solid. The two faces meeting at it. The blend itself opens as a dialog over the viewport, since an edge affords nothing else. See blends.
A picked face of the solid. "Face #N of the solid", plus Sketch on face and Text on face if the face is flat, plus Blend rim. A face affords three different things, so it offers all three rather than assuming one.
Nothing selected. "Nothing selected. Drag a box or shift-click to add."
Sketch geometry. A comma-separated list, like point #12, line #7. The numbers are internal identifiers; they are stable within a session and are not worth memorising.
Point fields
When exactly one point is selected, X and Y fields appear, tagged with a red X chip and a green Y chip, in millimetres.
Committing one does not teleport the point. It runs the same solve a drag would, so the point moves toward where you asked while every constraint continues to hold. A point that is fixed, or pinned by dimensions, will not go where you typed, and that is the constraint system working rather than the field failing.
Both fields accept arithmetic.
Constraint actions
Below the description, one button per constraint that applies to the current selection. Hovering a button explains what it will do.
If there is a selection but no button, you get No constraints for this combination. The usual cause is one thing too many in the selection. See constraints for the exact recipes.
The same buttons, in the same order, appear on the floating bar above the canvas (the first six) and in the context menu.
Sketch on face
Appears when a picked face is flat. It starts a new sketch lying on that face, which is how bosses and pockets get added.
A curved face refuses, with That face is not planar; pick a flat face to sketch on. The cylindrical wall of a boss is one curved face and cannot host a sketch.
After pressing it you stay in the 3D view with the Pencil armed, ready to draw straight onto the face. Switch to Sketch if you would rather work flat. See sketching on a face.
Errors
Rejections appear here in red: a constraint the solver refused, a blend that could not be built, or a file that would not open. They are worded to say what to do next rather than what went wrong internally.