Interface Overview

LoomFlow keeps the chrome minimal: one or two view panes fill the window, the ☰ file menu floats in the top-left corner, each pane’s view switcher sits in its top-right corner, and a resizable sidebar on the right holds the Inspector, Library, and Issues panels.

Switch between the four views

Every pane can show one of four views. Click a name in the pane switcher (top-right of the pane), or use the hotkeys:

View	Hotkey	What it shows
Schematic	1	Connectivity — connectors, cavities, wires, signals. See Schematic editing.
Layout	2	Physical topology — trunk bundles, branch points, lengths. See Layout.
Cut List	—	Live wire table (from/to, signal, gauge, color, length), recomputed on every change.
BOM	—	Live bill of materials.

The 1 and 2 hotkeys switch the first (left) pane and can be rebound in Preferences. Switching a pane’s view clears the current selection.

The Cut List and BOM panes each have an ⭳ Export CSV button in their toolbar, and clicking a Cut List row selects that wire so the Inspector shows it. Both tables are derived directly from the document — they can never fall out of sync with your wiring. See Exporting for the file outputs.

Split the workspace into two panes

Click ◫ (Split view) at the right end of the pane switcher to open a second pane — if you’re in Schematic it opens Layout alongside, and vice versa. A common setup is Schematic on the left and Layout on the right.

• Drag the divider between the panes to resize them.
• Each pane has its own switcher, so any combination works (for example Schematic + Cut List).
• In split mode the ◫ button becomes ✕ (Close this pane).

Your pane arrangement, the split ratio, and the sidebar width are all remembered across sessions on this machine.

Use the ☰ file menu

The ☰ button in the top-left shows the current file name, with a dot when there are unsaved changes. Click it to open the menu:

Entry	Notes
New	Starts a blank document (confirms if you have unsaved changes).
Open…	Ctrl+O
Save	Ctrl+S — writes the .loomflow project file. See Collaboration.
Save As…	Ctrl+Shift+S
Import ▸	KiCad project / schematic… on desktop, KiCad schematic(s)… in the browser; harness.design…. See Importing.
Export ▸	Wire list / cut list (CSV), BOM (CSV), Technical drawing (SVG)… (opens the drawing export dialog).
Preferences…	Opens app settings (below).

The window title also shows the file name with a • appended while changes are unsaved, and the app warns before closing or discarding a dirty document.

Work the sidebar

The sidebar (right edge, drag its left border to resize) has an action row on top:

• Search box — finds nodes by label or part number, signals by name, and notes by text; picking a hit focuses it on the canvas (Enter jumps to the first hit, Esc clears).
• ⇥ Arrange — auto-arranges the visible view(s), one undo step each.
• ↶ / ↷ — undo / redo buttons.

Below that are three tabs:

Tab	Purpose
Inspector	Properties of whatever is selected — node, wire, bundle, note, or device; with nothing selected it shows document-level settings.
Library	The parts library — browse and assign real housings, terminals, and seals. See Using the library.
Issues	Live validation results; the tab shows a count badge when problems exist.

Selecting anything on a canvas automatically snaps the sidebar to the Inspector tab.

Undo and redo

Ctrl+Z undoes, Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y redoes. Everything that edits the document goes through the undo history; the sidebar’s ↶/↷ buttons gray out when there’s nothing to step through. Ctrl+C/Ctrl+X/Ctrl+V copy, cut, and paste selected nodes — the full list is in the hotkey reference.

Set your Preferences

Open ☰ → Preferences…. Everything here is a per-machine app setting stored locally — none of it is written into the harness file, so a document opened on another machine looks the way that machine’s user wants.

Section	Options
Theme	Black (default), Grey, White, Blue, Purple
Corners	Sharp or Rounded UI corners
Canvas background	Dots, Blank, Crosshairs, Grid, Thin grid
Wires	Curved (smooth) or 45° angles (segment routing)
Defaults for new harnesses	Length unit mm/in, gauge unit AWG/mm² — seeds new documents only
Hotkeys	Rebind Add connector (C), Add terminal (T), Add splice (S), Schematic view (1), Layout view (2)

To rebind a hotkey, click its key button, then press a single letter or digit. Keys must be unique across actions; Reset hotkeys restores the defaults. The Ctrl+S / Ctrl+O / Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y bindings are fixed.

Tip

Existing documents keep their own units (set in the Inspector with nothing selected) — the Preferences units only apply when you create a new file.

Next: build your first harness in the quick start.