FirstSteps

Introduction to the User Interface

Screen layout

After starting XTrackCAD and clicking Ok on the "Tip of the Day" windows, you'll see a screen that looks similar to this one:

Overview

The Main Window contains (from the top down):

//Title bar// - Current filename, XTrackCAD version number, and window manager buttons. An asterisk (*) after the filename indicates that there are unsaved changes.

//Menu Bar// - File, Edit, View, Add, Change, Draw, Manage, Options, Macro, Window and Help menu buttons.

//Tool Bar// - manipulate tracks and other screen objects

//Hotbar// - scrolling list of Turnouts and Structures

//Main Canvas// - the main drawing area with rulers along each side

//Status Bar// - contains from left to right

1) scale of the canvas,
2) total track count,
3) X position of the cursor
4) Y position of the cursor
5) status, informational messages and precise input fields for some functions

Minimizing the //Main Window// will minimize all XTrackCAD windows.

The Main Canvas is where all tracks and objects are drawn.

The scale of the Main Canvas can be changed using the Zoom selections under the View menu or the Zoom buttons on the Toolbar.

Tracks will be drawn with two lines and ties if you zoom in. When the drawing scale is 1:1 a dashed centerline is also drawn for each track.

You can change which portion of the layout is displayed by using the Map Window. The size of the main window can be changed by dragging on the resizing borders.

The PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN keys will zoom out and zoom in as will the mouse wheel (often mapped two fingers being dragged on a trackpad). The ARROW keys will "pan" the Canvas in half page increments. Adding Shift to the arrow keys makes those movements be 1/10th of the width/height.

Overview of Main Menu

Before starting to create a plan, a short description of the main menu should help getting around.

• File: Open, save, print layouts and parameter files handling
• Edit: Select, deselect, cut and paste, edit visual properties like thickness or tunnel of track
• View: Zoom in and out, grid operations, refresh screen
• Add: Place new track pieces, including fixed straight, curved, turnouts plus hand-laid turnouts
• Change: Operations to change existing track, eg. modify, flip, rotate, move, elevation changes
• Draw: Add basic objects like lines, benchwork, text
• Manage: Custom management for your own structures or rolling stock, add new track pieces with the turnout designer, run trains
• Options: Change settings for the application or the layout
• Macro: Record or playback macros
• Windows - Select active window, reopen map window if closed
• Help - Access the user documentation

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