Options Menu

To change program preferences in the Graphical User Interface select: Tools > Options . The options menu includes:

• Command Panels
• Display
• General
• Geometry Defaults
• History and Cube-it Journalling
• Label Defaults
• Layout
• Mesh Defaults
• Mouse Settings
• Post Processor
• Quality Defaults

Note: Mac users reach this dialog box by selecting the Cube-it > Preferences menu.

Command Panels

This menu controls certain behaviors on all command panels.

• Automatic Input Field Focus -- If checked, when the user clicks the 'Apply' button to generate a command, input focus will be given to the first field on the command panel.
• Automatic Panel Reset -- If checked, when the user clicks the 'Apply' button, the contents of the command panel will be reset to default values.
• Hide Mesh Warning -- Is a user attempts to mesh an entity that already contains a mesh, a warning will be shown to the user indicating the situation. If this option is checked, the warning will not be shown.

Display Preferences

This menu controls entity display features for the graphics window which include the following:

• Display Triad in Graphics Window
• Enable Pre-Selection
• Highlight Surfaces when Highlighting Volume
• Background Color
• Perspective Angle
• Line Width
• Highlight Line Width
• Text Size
• Ambient Intensity
• Ambient Color
• Light Intensity
• Light Color
• Set the Graphics Axis to Axis, Origin, or None.

General Preferences

This menu controls general program options including the following:

• Prompt for Unsaved Application Data - When this is checked and the user opens a new .cub file or exits the application with unsaved changes, a dialog box will pop up asking if they want to save changes first. The user can uncheck this option to prevent that dialog box from appearing. This is checked by default.
• Prompt for Unsaved Journal Data - When this button is checked and the user closes the journal file editor with unsaved changes the program will prompt to save the changes. The user can uncheck this button to prevent the dialog box from appearing. It is checked by default.
• Change to Script Directory for Playback - When this option is checked, Claro will change the working directory to the directory the script is in when the script/journal file is run. When the script is finished, Claro will change the directory back to the previous one. This is useful when using relative paths in a journal file. When the option is unchecked, Claro won't change the directory when a journal file is run in which case the user may have to manually change the working directory when their journal file has relative paths.
• Prompt When Translating from Python - When checked, if the user translates a python script to a Cube-it journal file, the journal editor will warn them that commands may be lost. When unchecked, the journal editor will not issue the warning. There is a checkbox on the warning dialog that sets this option as well.
• Default Syntax - Sets the default syntax to use when creating a new journal file in the editor. The Cube-it option is only available when the Cube-it component is loaded.
• Enable Focus Follows Cursor in Command Window -- If checked, the focus will be automatically given to the command window when the user moves the cursor into the command window.
• Show Startup Splash Screen - Option to hide the startup splash screen on opening Claro.

Geometry Defaults

This menu controls the geometry defaults.

• Custom Colors for Geometry -- The user may specify that all surfaces, curves, and/or vertices are to be colored uniformly.
• Vertex Size
• Use Silhouette on Geometry
• Silhouette pattern

The user can also change the default geometry engine to one of the following:

• ACIS
• Facets

The faceting tolerance can also be controlled from this menu to change the way facets are drawn in the graphics window.

The default file format may be set.

• Cube-it (*.Cube-it) -- HDF5   Cube-it files contain the same information stored in Cubit files, that is, geometry, mesh, and mesh containers. In addition, a Cube-it file includes the journal file used to create the model. Including the journal file is user-definable. The Cube-it file is stored in HDF5 format making it possible for 3rd parties to store related data in the same file without disturbing the operation of Cube-it.
• Cubit (*.cub)

Mesh Auto Delete

• Auto Delete On -- When toggled on, will execute the command, "set mesh autodelete on". When toggled off, will execute the command "set mesh autodelete off".

History Preferences

This menu controls the input window history and journal file options. These include:

• Maximum Number of Commands - The max number of commands kept in the current command history.  
• Comment Line Filtering - Whether to count comments in command history.
• Maximum Number of Lines - Maximum number of lines in input window.
• Journal Command History - Whether to use a journal file to save command history. Default is to use a journal file.
• Journal File Directory - Where the journal file will be saved. Default is the starting directory.
• Journal File Name   - The name of the journal file. A name will be given by default if one is not specified. The default name for the GUI version of Cube-it is historyxx.jou with xx as the highest used number between 01 and 999 incremented by 1.

Cube-it History Preferences

• Use Cube-it Journaling - When this option is checked, Cube-it journaling will be used. By default it is checked.
• Output Log - When this option is checked, you can save error log to a separate output file.

Label Defaults

This menu controls the geometry and mesh entity labels in the graphics window.

• Text Size
• Label Geometry and Mesh Entities Toggles- Choose label visibility for each type of geometry or mesh entity

Layout Preferences

This menu option controls input window formatting and control panel docking options.

• Font for command line workspace
• Font size for command line workspace
• Reset Window Layout Button - Used to reset GUI windows to their default positions

Also included in the layout preferences is a list of available windows with a checkbox to show/hide each window.

Cube-it Layout Settings

This menu controls the layout of Cube-it specific buttons and tabs on the GUI.

• Toolbars and Docking Windows - Show/hide various toolbars and docking windows.
• Show script tab - Shows the script tab on the command line window
• Window Tab Position - various Cube-it tools are contained in Tabbed windows. The tabs can be shown at the top, bottom, left-side, or right-side of the window.

Mesh Defaults

• Node Size
• Element Shrink
• Mesh Line Color - The same as "Color Lines" command.
• Default Element Type - Tet/Tri or Hex/Quad
• Surface Scheme Coloring (used in Meshing Power Tool) - This option allows you to select different colors for surface schemes when visualized using the meshing power tools.

Mouse Settings

This menu controls mouse button controls. Pressing the Emulate Command Line Settings button will cause all of the settings to simulate mouse controls in the command line version of Cube-it. For a detailed description of mouse settings see the View Navigation-GUI page.

Post Meshing Settings

Control the behavior of the Post-Meshing button. The button is located at the right-hand side of the top-level command panel button bar.

The very first time a user presses the button, the Post-Meshing Settings dialog will be displayed.

The dialog includes three possible inputs:

• Executable -- Specify an executable file to launch when the button is pressed
• Arguments -- Indicate the arguments that will be passed to the executable
• Script -- Provide a path to a script (journal file or python script) which will be run BEFORE launching the executable.

Quality Defaults

This menu controls quality defaults for different quality metrics. For a description of the different quality metrics see the respective pages:

• Hexahedral metrics
• Quadrilateral metrics
• Tetrahedral metrics
• Triangular metrics