Application window

The first time you see the GenerativeComponents application window, you may feel a little overwhelmed. You need not be. Here we highlight the most relevant user interface elements.

1. Menu bar - Gives access to standard menu items plus many additional tools and utilities.
2. Ribbon search - Gives a quick way to find tools or dialogs across multiple tabs and workflows of the ribbon.
3. Help access - Click the ? icon to open help contents.
4. Ribbon toolbar – Gives you access to different tools that are most commonly used with GenerativeComponents
5. View controls - Allows you to control the window area, zoom level and many other view tools.
6. Node Types dialog - Allows you to create new nodes by selecting from the available node icons and then update node techniques in the Graph or the Transactions dialog.
7. Transactions dialog - Records a series of transactions that contain the instructions of how to construct the user's geometric and associative content.
8. Drawing view - Where you draw.
9. Base Coordinate System - The 0,0,0 point of the file. It is placed using the Create baseCS tool.
10. The Graph - Symbolically represents the model's nodes and their relationships. Almost every graph will have a Coordinate System.
11. Status bar - Shows messages and prompts for the user, as well as giving access to other common utilities.

Mouse

The basic use of the mouse is as follows:

• The left mouse button is the "Yes" button. For example, "yes, I want to place point here" or "yes, I want to pick that item in a dialog".
• The right mouse button is the "No" button. For example, "no, I do not want to place more points". You can think of it as the "cancel" or "stop" button.
• Pressing and holding the mouse scroll wheel pans the view when the mouse is moved.
• Rolling the mouse wheel forward zooms in on the view.
• Rolling the mouse wheel backward zooms out on the view.