Projects and the library

1Projects: open, save, save as

A BrickIT! project is one .bpg file. It holds everything you have drawn: every panel and layer, the brick size and scale, the line colours, and the Building window's settings for the carcass, floors and roof. Projects are opened and saved from the File menu:

2The Panel Library

The Panel Library is your own catalogue of finished work, kept by BrickIT! itself rather than in any one project, so every project can use it. Open it with the 📚 Library button 1 in the bar over the preview.

From the top, the window has the box for saving what is open, the search box, the buttons that act on the selected entries, and the entries themselves in their groups. Each entry shows a preview, its name, the size of its main panel, its bond, how many openings it has and the date it was saved.

• Load opens the entry in the editor in place of the panels you have open, with its layers, brick size and colours.
• Delete takes it out of the library, after asking.

3Save a panel to the library

1. Get the panel ready in the editor: everything that is open goes into the entry, every panel and layer.
2. Click 📚 Library, type a name in the Panel name... box, and click Save Current (or press Enter).

The entry is drawn as a preview from the panels themselves, and it goes into the Ungrouped group until you move it into one.

An entry keeps the panels and their layers. It does not keep the Building window's floors, roof and carcass settings: for those, save the project.

4Groups and search

Groups are folders for entries - one for each kit, building or street block. To put entries in a group, select them (tick their boxes), click Move to group…, and type the group's name. Type a name that already exists to add them to that group; leave it blank to take them out of any group.

Each group has a bar with its name and how many entries it holds. Click the name to fold the group away or open it again; tick the box at the start of the bar to select every entry in it. Groups are listed in order of name, with Ungrouped last.

The search box finds entries by name or group as you type, and opens every group with something in it. Select all found then selects just what the search found:

5Work on a selection

Everything in this bar works on the selected entries, however many there are and whichever groups they are in:

The buttons that work through the entries one by one show their progress, with a Stop button. While they run, BrickIT! loads each entry in turn, exactly as Load would; when they finish, the project you had open is put back as it was.

Refresh previews

Entries that come from a library file made elsewhere may have only a plain outline for a preview, and an entry's preview can fall out of date after a new version of BrickIT! draws things better. Select them and click Refresh previews:

6Export many at once

To cut a whole kit, you do not need to load and export each wall in turn:

1. Select the entries - a whole group with the box on its bar, or a search and Select all found.
2. Click Export SVG or Export DXF.
3. Choose a folder. Every file goes into it, and BrickIT! tells you how many it wrote and where.

Each file is named after its entry - the ID alone when the name starts with one, so the five walls of the E-2031 block came out as E-2031-03a-F.svg, E-2031-03a-S.svg, E-2031-03b-F.svg and so on. Two entries with the same name keep both files: the second gets (2) after its name.

Detail layers works the same way, making one file of detail parts for each entry that has stone features. Any without are left out, and BrickIT! tells you how many.

Send to Nest

Send to Nest puts the selected panels on the Nest Parts tab, packed onto as many sheets of the size set there as they need, and takes you to it. Here, seven party walls from three street blocks on 300 × 200 mm sheets:

7Share and import library files

A library file is a .json file of entries - for sending a kit to a friend, backing up, or moving your library to another computer.

• Export: in the library window, Export library… saves every entry; with entries selected it reads Export 3 as library… (or however many) and saves just those. File › Export Panel Library... saves the whole library.
• Import: Import… in the library window, or File › Import Panel Library..., and choose the file.

Before anything is added, BrickIT! compares the file with your library and shows you what it found:

• New entries are always added.
• Entries already in your library, unchanged, are left as they are.
• For entries already in your library, changed, you choose:
  • Update them replaces your copies with the file's, in the same place in your library - including older versions the file says these replace;
  • Skip them keeps your copies and adds only the new entries;
  • Keep both adds the file's versions alongside yours, with (imported) after their names.

Click Import, and BrickIT! tells you how many entries were added, updated, and left unchanged or skipped. Imported entries keep their groups.

8A building from the library

When a kit's walls are separate library entries - a front, a corner and a return, say - select them all and use one of these two buttons:

Each entry's own panels come across (not its reveal layers), named by the entry's ID and its third part. Opening the three walls of 2710 Frederick Douglass Blvd as one project gives three panels, ready for the Building window (chapter 5), whose Fill the missing walls adds plain panels for any sides you have not drawn:

9Send windows to GlazeIT!

GlazeIT! 2, the companion app for designing and cutting glazing, can start from a glazing schedule made by BrickIT!: every opening on your walls, grouped by size and shape, with how many there are and which panel each is on. Send one:

• for the open project: File › Send Windows to GlazeIT!;
• for any library entries: select them, and click Send windows to GlazeIT! in the library window.

BrickIT! opens the schedule in GlazeIT!. If GlazeIT! is not installed, it saves the schedule and tells you where, so you can open it later.

Openings go in the same group when they are the same kind (window or door), shape, width and height, with the same head - square, or an arch of the same type and rise - and the same mullions, glazing bars or door. A flat (jack) arch counts as a square head, since the glass is square. Reveal layers and front layers are left out, so each window is counted once. Here is what the three walls of 2710 Frederick Douglass Blvd sent:

Fifty-five openings come down to eight sizes to glaze. Windows come first, the commonest at the top. A window with glazing bars (chapter 3) is listed with them, so GlazeIT! knows one plain pane goes behind BrickIT!'s card bars; a window with a stone frame in the core is marked for a plain pane glued on the back of the core.

10The Opening Library

The Opening Library keeps single windows and doors - with their arch, mullions, tracery, cill, lintel and quoins - to put on any panel. It is kept by BrickIT!, not in the project.

Save an opening

1. On the Windows & Doors card, click the opening in the list (or in the preview) to select it.
2. Click 💾 Save 1. Its name starts as its type and size, such as Window 12×22; type a better one and click OK.

It goes in the library as a window or a door, as it is on the panel. Its position is not kept: only what it is.

Browse and use the library

Click 📚 Library 2 with an opening selected, or 📚 Opening Library under Add Opening when none is.

• Save from here: with an opening selected, the top row saves it under the name you type, as a Window, Door or Custom, with Save Selected.
• Find one: the tabs show All, or only 🪟 Windows, 🚪 Doors or ⚙️ Custom. Each entry shows its size and, in short, its arch (Jack, Seg, Semi, Lancet and so on), its lights, and whether it has a cill and quoins.
• Use one: Add to Panel puts a copy on the active panel at the X and Y in the Windows & Doors card, and selects it so you can move it into place.
• Tidy up: ✏️ renames an entry, the small list changes its category, and × deletes it.

To back up or share the Opening Library, use File › Export Opening Library... and Import Opening Library.... An import adds the openings you do not already have and skips the ones you do.

11Keyboard shortcuts

With an opening or a string course selected, click the preview and use:

In the name boxes of both libraries, Enter saves. The View menu's zoom and full-screen commands work on the whole window, with the usual Windows keys.