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GearConnect Docs

Tools Menu

The Tools Menu provides access to various utilities designed to assist in troubleshooting and resolving project issues. Some options are disabled depending on the current state of the application.

Draw Gear Group

When on the Draw Page, this will allow you to draw a Gear Group. This will create a new gear group in the drawing that you can add gear items to.

When the checkbox is checked, that means your cursor mode is set to gear groups. This will allow you to draw a gear group by clicking and dragging in the drawing. Once you release the mouse, the Gear Group will be created.

See Gear Groups for more information.

Insert Text Box

When on the Draw Page, this will allow you to insert a text box into the drawing. This is useful for adding notes or labels to your drawing.

When the checkbox is checked, that means your cursor mode is set to text boxes. This will allow you to click to insert a text box into the drawing.

See Text Boxes for more information.

Project Validation

Due to the nature of being a real-time, server-backed data application, data is constantly being saved and updated on the server. If there are any network issues, or if you close the app too quickly / without saving, you may end up with inconsistent data between the server and your app.

As such, we need to have a robust validation system in place to ensure that data integrity is maintained. A lightweight version of this system runs automatically as you use the app to make sure everything is aligned, but a full validation process runs when projects are opened and imported, but you can also manually trigger it by clicking the Project Validation button.

When a validation is run, the project is locked and it performs the following:

  1. Saves your project to the server – This ensures that the server has the latest version of your project.
  2. Performs a validation check – This checks every item in your drawing against the server to ensure that there are no data mismatches.
    • If there are any mismatches, you will be alerted and prompted to remove the conflicting items.
  3. Cleans up any orphaned data – This removes any data that is no longer needed, such as old versions of items that have been removed or deleted that are not currently in use. During this process, some gear items may be marked as not used in the drawing if they weren’t in fact in the drawing.
  4. Re-opens the project – Once the validation is complete, your project will be re-opened fresh from the server, skipping the Version History copy to ensure that you are working with the latest version of your project.
  5. Re-runs the validation check – This is to ensure that the validation process was successful and that there are no further data mismatches. If there are, it will repeat the process once more.

Reload Library

You will notice that the library is automatically updated when it detects a change, both from the default library and your own custom library (Pro feature). This is a delta update and will continue to update your local library with each update (the copy of the library saved to your computer), adding any new library items or versions that have been added.

When you open other people’s projects, you are also loading their specific library items found in the project into your local library as well. Overtime, you may want to clean up your library cache and remove items that you no longer need.

Reloading the library from the Tools Menu will purge your local library and re-load the default and your custom user library items. This is also useful if you are having issues with your library with items not showing up or being able to be inserted into the drawing correctly.

Reset Project Cache

The Reset Project Cache option allows you to clear the local project cache stored on your device. When using Local Mode, project data is stored on your computer to enable faster editing and offline functionality.

This tool is useful when:

  • You are experiencing issues with a project not syncing properly with the server
  • Local project data appears corrupted or contains errors
  • You want to ensure you’re working with the latest server version of all projects

When the project cache is reset, the app will reload all project data directly from the server. This is different from the Delete Local Projects option in the File Menu as this completely clears all local project data, including cached server data, whereas the Delete Local Projects option specifically deletes projects that are local only, leaving the server data intact.