Reading the Timeline
Every step you take is recorded as a pill on the narrow white strip down the left edge of the viewport. Reading that strip tells you how a part was built, in what order, and which step is in trouble.
One pill per step, oldest at the top
The strip is 56 px wide and runs the height of the viewport, below the logo and separated from it by a border. At the top sits a header pill: a scan-cube icon labelled Model. Click it to open the model's configuration panel. In the smart-object editor the same pill carries a sparkle icon and reads Smart object.
Below the header, one pill per step in build order, oldest first, with a small caret between each pair. Hover a pill to see the step's name. The strip is not drawn in Drawings, and it is not drawn in the code smart-object editor either, which gives that side of the screen to the code pane and its own preview slider instead.
Order is the point. Each step is applied to the result of the one above it, so the strip read top to bottom is the recipe for the part, and a step can only use what the steps above it have already made.
A smart-object placement is the one step whose pill does not show its own name: it shows the name of the object you placed.
Colour follows what the step does
Colour is fixed per kind, so the same tool always looks the same. Sketches are green, solids that add material are violet, and cuts are red.
Colour tracks the result, not the tool. An extrude set to Subtract is coloured as a cut, not as an extrude. A red pill in the middle of a run of violet ones is material coming out.
Clicking a pill
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Left-click | Selects the step and opens its panel |
| Shift-click | Adds the step to, or removes it from, a multi-selection |
| Right-click | Opens the context menu. On a sketch Hide in 3D / Show in 3D comes first, then Disable / Enable, then Delete. On every other step it is those last two |
| Click the empty strip | Clears the selection |
Opening a panel this way also changes what the viewport shows. Editing a Part You Have Built covers that.
The playhead
A 3 px light-blue line runs down the left edge of the strip and ends in a right-triangle handle. That is the playhead, and it sits between the last step being applied and the next one.
Steps below it fade almost out of sight, but they keep their colour: a faint violet pill is still a violet pill, and that is what tells a future step apart from a disabled one, which is drained to gray. They have not been deleted: they are not part of what you are looking at. Drag the handle to move it. Clicking a pill never moves it. Rolling Back Through History covers the rest.
Reading a pill's state
| Pill looks like | What it means |
|---|---|
| Full colour | Applied, part of the model you can see |
| Very faint, still its own colour, ordinary cursor | Below the playhead, not currently applied |
| Gray, no colour left, cursor turns to a barred circle | Disabled |
| Pastel red, pulsing | This step failed on the last rebuild |
| Gray while another pill is red | Something else failed; this step is fine |
| Spinner instead of an icon | Being recomputed right now |
Error mode is global. The moment one step fails, every pill re-tints at once: the failing ones go pastel red and pulse, and every other pill goes gray. A timeline that has turned entirely gray is not broken, it is telling you to go and find the red pill. Nothing else announces the failure.
Groups
A group collapses a consecutive run of steps into one named pill. Click it to drill into a view of that group alone, with a back arrow to come out again. If any step inside failed, the group's pill carries the error tint, so drill in to find which one.
To make one: shift-click the pills you want, right-click the selection, choose Group. The new pill appears with its name already in edit mode, so type the name and press Enter. Dismiss that and the group is called Group, which tells the next reader nothing.
Group is offered only when the steps you selected are consecutive, ungrouped and at the top level. A selection with a gap in it, or one that reaches into a group that already exists, gets no Group entry and no explanation.
A group's pill carries a context menu of its own, and it is the only place two commands live:
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
Right-click the group, Rename |
Puts the name back in edit mode |
Right-click the group, Ungroup |
Dissolves the group. The steps stay exactly where they are and go back to being ordinary pills |
Neither command is on a member step's menu, so drill out of the group before you go looking for them.
When it goes wrong
The whole timeline is gray. One step has failed. There is no error list and no summary, so scan for the pill that is red and pulsing and open it. When a Step Goes Red explains what you will find inside.
A pill does nothing when clicked. Two kinds of pill refuse a left-click, and the cursor tells you which one you are on. A disabled pill is inert: it is gray, the cursor over it is a barred circle, and clicking neither selects it nor opens anything. Right-click it and choose Enable. A pill below the playhead is also inert, but it keeps its colour and its cursor stays the ordinary arrow: drag the playhead down past it and it answers again.
A pill has no right-click menu. Steps below the playhead offer no context menu at all, so there is no Disable, no Delete and no Hide in 3D down there. Move the playhead back to the end first, then right-click.
See also
- When a Step Goes Red: finding the failure the gray timeline is pointing at
- Rolling Back Through History: moving the playhead and inserting a step mid-history
- Editing a Part You Have Built: opening a step and changing it
- A Tour of the Editor: where the strip sits among the other panels