The MatterCAD Menu on the Website

While you edit a design on the website, the toolbar has a MatterCAD menu (☰) right after Add to Bed. On a phone the button shows only the ☰.

It holds four items: New Design, Interface Tour, Help and Settings.

New Design

New Design starts a new design on an empty bed, on the same page, and you keep editing.

If the design you have open has changes that are not saved, MatterCAD asks first, in a box titled Save Changes?: “Save your changes before you start a new design?”

  • Save Changes - Saves the design, then starts the new one once the save has finished.
  • Discard Changes - Starts the new design without saving your changes.
  • Cancel - Keeps the design you have open, with its changes.

The new design is called “New Design” and the page’s title changes to match. The title bar’s Download button is hidden until you save it, because nothing is added to your library until then. The first Save asks for a name and saves the design where the design you had open would have saved a copy: the folder you opened it from on the Library page when you may add to it, otherwise My Designs (see Saving on the Web).

To go back to the design you had open before, use your browser’s Back button. It opens that design as it was last saved.

You can also start a new design from the website’s Library page: open a folder and click New Design. MatterCAD opens on an empty bed, ready to edit, and the first Save puts the design in that folder. If you press Done before you ever save it, you go back to the folder.

Interface Tour

Interface Tour opens the Welcome to MatterCAD box. Click Next to start a tour that points out the parts of the editor one at a time, or Done to close the box. On the website the tour visits only the parts the website’s editor has.

Help

Help opens MatterCAD’s help pages in a window over the editor. Your design stays as it is underneath.

The first time you open it, the articles take a moment to arrive: the window shows “Loading help…” until they do. If they can’t be loaded, it says “Help couldn’t be loaded. Check your internet connection, then open Help again.” Opening Help again tries once more. The Mouse and Keys pages, which list every mouse control and shortcut, are there either way, even without a connection.

  • On a wider screen the window opens at the right. You can move it, and close it with the close button in its title bar.
  • On a phone, or in a narrow window, it covers the whole screen. Close it with the close button in its title bar.

Settings

Settings opens a window with the settings that matter while you edit in a browser:

  • Number format (under General) - How numbers show and are typed: System (your computer’s or phone’s own way), 1234.5 (a point before the decimals) or 1234,5 (a comma before the decimals). The editor redraws every number in the new format at once.
  • Depth Peeling Layers (under Options) - How many layers of see-through parts the 3D view draws: Off, 4, 6 (the starting setting) or 8. Fewer layers draw faster, which can help on a slower phone.

The other settings MatterCAD has on your computer aren’t in this window. The colors follow the light or dark theme you chose on the website, and the camera, snapping and units are set with the camera controls in the 3D view (Viewport Navigation).