Project Settings

The Project Settings Dialog is accessible from the Edit Menu when you have a project open.

These settings apply to the project you currently have open.

General

Name

The name of the project. This is what you see in the project list and at the top of the app.

Version

The version of the project. This defaults to one and can be anything you like. It’s useful for keeping track of different versions of the same project, especially when coupled with Version History. This appears at the top of the app next to the name, as well as in various exports.

Note

In addition to the version you set, GearConnect will automatically keep track of a sub version, called the Iteration. This is a number that increments each time you save the project. This is useful for keeping track of incremental changes between versions, and for identifying different files during exports.

This is the second number after the decimal point in the version number. For example, if your version is 1.2, the iteration will be 2.

Tip

You can also change the Name and Version easily by clicking on the display in the top menu bar, which is located at the top center of the app.

Drawing

Grid Size

You can change the grid size by changing the number in the Grid Size input box. This must be a number between 1 and 99. The grid size is used when moving gear items around the drawing, including connections, labels, and snap lines.

Grid Type

You can choose between Dot (default) and Mesh grid types. The Dot grid type is a series of dots that make up the grid. The Mesh grid type is a series of lines that make up the grid.

Show Grid

You can toggle the grid on and off from the checkmark.

Snap Lines

By default, snap lines are enabled to easily align gear items to other gear items. You can toggle snap lines on and off by clicking the Disable Snap Lines or Enable Snap Lines button.

Connections

Smart Routing

One of the unique features of GearConnect is the Smart Routing feature. In most drawing applications, you need to manually adjust connections and lines to avoid gear and obstacles. With Smart Routing, connections will automatically route around gear items and other obstacles.

There are times when smart routing cannot find a path, such as when gear items are too close together. In these times, the connection will fall back to a simple straight line. You can toggle Smart Routing on and off by clicking the Disable Smart Connection Routing or Enable Smart Connection Routing button in the Draw Toolbar.

Animate Signal Flow

This setting controls the signal flow animation on directional connections. It has three modes:

• Off - No animation.
• Low - Animated dashes indicating flow direction, without a glow effect. Better for performance.
• High - Animated dashes with a glow effect. More visually pleasing but more demanding on the GPU and may cause performance issues on medium to large drawings.

The animation only appears on directional connections - where one end resolves to an input and the other to an output. Connections where both ends are bidirectional do not display the animation.

Note

The animation automatically pauses during selection. This improves performance during interaction. The animation resumes once the selection is cleared.

Tip

This animation respects your system’s Reduce Motion accessibility setting. If you have reduced motion enabled in your operating system, the animation will not play.

Default Tag Mode (Pro feature)

Controls the tag preference assigned to newly created connections. See Connection Tags for full details.

• Force Off: The connection is shown as a full line.
• Force On: The connection is shown as two short stubs with navigation labels, regardless of distance.
• Auto: The connection switches between full line and stubs based on the distance between the connected gear. When the center-to-center distance exceeds the Auto Tag Threshold, it renders as stubs. Otherwise, it renders as a full line.

Note

New projects start in Auto for Pro users (so tagging is enabled by default), and Force Off for Starter users.

Default Tag Label (Pro feature)

Controls what text the tags of newly created connections display. See Tag Labels for full details.

• Gear Only (default): The tag shows the name of the gear on the other end of the connection.
• Gear and Port: The tag shows the gear name and the connected port label, separated by a dot (for example, FOH · RJ45 1).
• Port Only: The tag shows only the connected port label (for example, RJ45 1).

Note

Changing this setting only affects connections created afterwards. Existing connections keep their own tag label, which you can change per connection from the right-click or Edit menu.

Pin Tag Labels (Pro feature)

When enabled (default), tag navigation labels are always visible on tagged connections. When disabled, labels only appear when hovering over the connection.

Tip

Turning this setting off makes it much easier to find the other end of a connection when working with large projects as they stand out more during hover.

Auto Tag Threshold (Pro feature)

The distance threshold (in pixels) used by connections set to Auto tag mode. When the center-to-center distance between the connected gear exceeds this value, the connection renders as stubs. The default is 1000 and the range is 0–3000.

Tag Length (Pro feature)

The minimum length (in pixels) of each tag stub. Higher values add more space between the port and the tag label. The default is 30 and the range is 12–100.

Options

Connection Routing

When using Smart Routing, you can choose the quality of the routing. The higher the quality, the more times the routing algorithm will try to find the best path. The default is Quality, and is suitable for most projects. For complex projects, you may want to lower the quality.

When a route cannot be determined, it will simply fall back to a straight line that you can customize like normal.

The options are:

• Unusable (Are you sure?) – 12,000 iterations
• Quality (For small projects) – 8,000 iterations – Default
• Balanced (For medium projects) – 2,000 iterations
• Performance (For large projects) – 500 iterations
• Potato (For massive projects) – 100 iterations

Use Dynamic Mode

This is a fallback feature when there is no recent Version History accessible, and your project is large. In most situations, this feature will not be activated but you can disable it if you like, as it is enabled by default.

When enabled the entire project will not be loaded by default when the project is opened, and instead it will only load enough information to display the drawing and some initial data. As you interact with the drawing and project, the missing data will be loaded in the background. You may notice a slight delay when interacting with the drawing as data loads.

You can download the entire project (essentially exiting Dynamic Mode) by clicking the In Dynamic Mode - Click to download the full project yellow cloud button at the top right of the app. This button only appears when Dynamic Mode is enabled.

When in Dynamic Mode, certain actions are restricted like editing reports, Version History, and exporting the project. Downloading the full project will allow you to do these actions.