Quick Start

This walkthrough takes you from an empty canvas to an exported cut list. It assumes LoomFlow is already running — see Installation if not. When LoomFlow starts you get a blank, untitled document — that’s all you need. (If you’ve been experimenting, click the ☰ button in the top-left corner of the canvas and choose New to start fresh.)

Add two connectors

Make sure the pane shows the Schematic view (press 1 or click Schematic in the pane switcher, top-right).

1. Right-click an empty spot on the canvas and choose ＋ Connector here.
2. In the New connector dialog, keep the suggested name (CONN1), leave Library part on None — ad-hoc connector, and set Cavities to 3 with the stepper.
3. Press Enter (or click Create).

Repeat for a second connector a little to the right. Instead of right-clicking you can also just press c — the same dialog opens and the node spawns at the next spot in a cascading grid. (t adds a terminal, s a splice.)

Tip

If you have a parts library loaded, picking a Library part in this dialog stamps the real cavity count, labels, and gender onto the connector — see Parts Library. Ad-hoc is fine for now.

Draw wires

Each cavity row has a small connection handle on both sides. Drag from a cavity on CONN1 and drop on a cavity on CONN2 — that’s a wire. Draw two or three.

To move around: scroll to zoom, middle-drag (or hold Space and drag) to pan. Plain left-drag is box-select, and Ctrl+click adds to a selection.

Name the signals

Click a connector to select it — the sidebar snaps to the Inspector tab. Under Cavities, each row has a signal… box: type a name like CAN_H or PWR and press Enter. Typing the exact same name on another cavity joins that cavity to the existing net; a new name creates a new net. Named cavities show a signal chip on the schematic node.

Route it in Layout

Press 2 (or click Layout in the pane switcher). The same nodes now render as physical items — connectors become documentation cards with a pinout table.

Drag from one node’s handle to the other. That creates a bundle: a physical trunk the wires between those nodes will run through. The hint at the bottom of the pane reminds you: drag node-to-node for trunks.

Set the bundle length

The new bundle has a chip at its midpoint reading length?. Click it — the Inspector opens on the bundle — and enter a value in the Length field (in your document’s unit, mm by default). The chip updates, and every wire routed through the trunk gets its cut length recalculated live. The ⌁ count on the chip is how many wires run through the trunk.

A wire’s cut length is the bundle path between its two ends, plus each end’s breakout tail and any per-end extra — details in Layout & Bundles.

Open the cut list and BOM

Click Cut List in the pane switcher. You get a live table — From, To, Signal, Ga, Color, Length — with one row per wire; clicking a row selects that wire. Click ⭳ Export CSV in the table’s toolbar to save it.

BOM works the same way: a live parts roll-up with its own ⭳ Export CSV button. Both exports are also available anytime under ☰ → Export → Wire list / cut list (CSV) and BOM (CSV).

Tip

Click the ◫ button in the pane switcher to split the workspace — for example, Schematic on the left and Cut List on the right, updating as you wire.

Save your work

Press Ctrl+S. The document saves as a single .loomflow file — one portable file holding the whole design and its device images. The first save asks where to put it; after that Ctrl+S writes silently to the same file. See Collaboration for sharing and cloud sync.

Note

In the browser version, opening and saving files works in Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome or Edge. The desktop app uses standard system file dialogs.

Keys you just learned

Key	Action
c / t / s	Add connector / terminal / splice
1 / 2	Schematic / Layout view
Ctrl+S / Ctrl+O	Save / Open
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y	Undo / Redo
Delete	Delete selection

The full list (and how to rebind the single-key ones) is in the Hotkeys reference.

Where to go next

• Schematic view — splices, twisted pairs, shielded cables, inline pairs, wire colors and idents.
• Layout view — branch points, breakout tails, re-routing trunks, connector documentation cards.
• The interface — a tour of everything else on screen: search, Issues, split panes, preferences.