Panels: moving, resizing, folding

Every panel of the plugin floats over the viewport. A panel can be moved, and many panels can be resized or folded away to a chip. This page describes how, and what the plugin keeps from one session to the next.

What it makes possible:

The tools left open beside the Properties panel all day. They fold away by themselves when nothing is selected.
A tool folded to a chip while a shot is framed, then returned to the same place with one click.
A crowded layout put back in order with one press. Settings ▸ Reset Layout.

Where each panel first opens

Panel	Place	Shows when
The HUD	Top left	Something the plugin can edit is selected, and ≡ ▸ Emit is on.
The tray	Directly under the HUD	A tool panel has been folded away.
The Transform button	Under the HUD and the tray	The selection holds something that can be transformed, and no emitter.
The Properties panel	Top right	Something the plugin can edit is selected, and ≡ ▸ Properties is on.
The particle counter	Bottom left	On at the start of every session.
The Optimization indicator	Bottom left, to the right of the counter	≡ ▸ Tools ▸ Opt. Indicator is on.
The ≡ button and its strip	Bottom right	Always.
The Tools menu	Bottom right, to the left of where Settings opens	≡ ▸ Tools is on.
Settings	Bottom right, above the strip	≡ ▸ Settings is on.
The Re: panel and the PropertyTools panel	To the left of the Properties panel, side by side	Opened from the Tools menu.
Randomize, Shortcuts	The middle of the viewport	Opened from the Tools menu, and from Settings.
The Fix box	The right edge, halfway up	The selection holds an emitter with a problem.
Toasts	Bottom right, one above another	The plugin has a short message.

“Something the plugin can edit” is an emitter, or a stock ParticleEmitter, Trail or Beam.

Moving a panel

Drag a panel by its header. Every panel moves this way, the editors included. The panel stays under the cursor at any UI Scale %.

On the HUD, the header is the bar that shows the name of the selection. Dragging it moves the HUD, the tray and the Transform button together.

Panels may overlap freely. One panel does not snap to another, and one panel does not push another aside.

Resizing a panel from an edge

Step	Control	Action	Result
1	Any edge of the panel	Rest the cursor on it	After a moment a soft glow shows along that edge, inside the panel.
2	The glowing edge	Drag	The panel grows or shrinks from that edge.

All four edges work. A click on an edge before the glow shows does nothing.

Resized from an edge	Not resized from an edge
The Properties panel	The HUD
The Re: panel and the PropertyTools panel	Settings
Hue	The Tools menu
Emit Code	The Theme Editor
Randomize	The graph editor
Shortcuts	The colour editor
The Inventory	The colour picker

Each panel has a smallest size. It does not shrink past that.

Text does not grow or shrink when a panel is resized. A label too long for its place is cut short and ends in three dots. Two controls change the size of text. UI Scale % in Settings scales the whole interface. The size slider of the Theme Editor scales text alone.

Snap Panels In View

Settings ▸ Snap Panels In View starts on.

Switch	A panel dragged or resized past the edge of the viewport
On	Is moved back when you let go, so that the whole panel can be reached.
Off	Stays where you drop it, even off the screen.

With the switch on, a tool panel that is shown again gets the same correction. This is the only move the plugin makes by itself.

Reset Layout

Settings ▸ Reset Layout puts the panels back.

Effect	Panels
Returned to the place where they first open	The HUD, the Properties panel, the Tools menu, the Re: panel, the PropertyTools panel, Hue, Emit Code, Randomize, Shortcuts, the Inventory
Returned to their first size	The Re: panel, the PropertyTools panel, Hue, Emit Code, Randomize, Shortcuts, the Inventory
Closed	The Details panel of the Inventory and its dialogs, the Shortcuts panel, the Hit Filter popup
Cancelled	An open Randomize panel
Left alone	Settings, the Theme Editor, the graph editor, the colour editor and the colour picker

The Properties panel is moved back, and keeps the size it has.

Panels with tabs

Two panels hold tabs. The Re: panel holds Size and Time. The PropertyTools panel holds Clipboard and Shifter. Each has one header and one page for each tab.

To	Do this
Change tab	Click the tab in the header. The change is made at once.
Change tab without a click	Rest the cursor on the tab briefly.
Show the panel, or hide it	Press its entry in the Tools menu. The panel shows the tab it showed last.

The tab in use is filled. The other tab is dim.
The new page slides in from the side its tab sits on.
The panel grows or shrinks to the height of the page it shows.
A panel resized while a page shows keeps that height for that page, for the rest of the session. Each page has its own height. The width is shared.
Each of the two panels has its own smallest width. The tabs stay readable at that width.

The shortcut actions Toggle Resize, Toggle Retime, Toggle Clipboard and Toggle Shifter bring one tab forward. Used while that tab is showing, the action closes the panel.

The minimise button and the tray

A tool panel has two buttons at the right of its header: a minimise button and X.

Has a minimise button	Has none
The Re: panel	The HUD
The PropertyTools panel	The Properties panel
Hue	Settings
Emit Code	The Tools menu
Randomize	The Theme Editor
Shortcuts	The Inventory
	The graph editor, the colour editor and the colour picker

To	Do this
Fold a panel away	Press the minimise button beside X. The panel hides. A chip with the panel’s name appears in the tray.
Bring the panel back	Click its chip. The panel returns to the place it had, and the chip goes. Opening the panel from the Tools menu or by its shortcut does the same.
Close a panel with no chip	Press X.

The tray is a row of chips directly under the HUD. With many chips, the row wraps onto a second line. The chip of the Re: panel reads Re: Size/Time. The chip of the PropertyTools panel reads PropertyTools.

The tray is not kept between sessions.

Automatic folding

Three panels fold away by themselves: the Re: panel, the PropertyTools panel and Hue.

When	What happens
The selection holds nothing the plugin can edit	Each of the three that is open folds into the tray.
An emitter is selected again	Each panel that folded by itself comes back.
A panel was folded by hand	It stays folded until its chip is clicked.

The scale sliders

The graph editor and the Inventory are not resized from an edge. Each has a small slider in its header.

Control	Kind	Starts at	What it does
The slider in the header of the graph editor	Slider	`1.00x`	Sets the size of the editor, from `0.30x` to `1.50x`.
The slider in the header of the Inventory	Slider		Sets the size of the Inventory and of its Details panel, from `0.30x` to `1.50x`.

While the slider is dragged, a see-through outline shows the size the panel will take. The panel changes size when the slider is let go. Both scales are kept for the next session.

Collapse arrows

The HUD, the Properties panel and the Tools menu each have a ▼ in the header. Press it to shrink the panel to its header. Press it again to open the panel.

Each section of the Properties panel also expands and collapses. The plugin keeps the state of every section for the next session, for each emitter type separately.

Search in the Properties panel

The search box of the Properties panel reads Search properties… while empty.

Type in it to narrow the rows. The rows change as you type.
A row matches when the text begins its label, or begins any word of its label.
A section with no matching row hides.
Clear the box to bring every row back. The sections you had collapsed are collapsed again.

Dropdowns and the mouse wheel

To	Do this
Open a dropdown	Click it. The list opens under the row. Near the bottom of the screen the list opens upward.
Step through the choices with the wheel	Rest the cursor on the dropdown for a moment, then turn the mouse wheel.

While the cursor rests on a dropdown, the wheel does not scroll the panel.

Toasts

A toast is a short message at the bottom right of the viewport. It goes away by itself. Convert from Forge reports its result in a toast.

Clicks and the selection

Clicking inside the plugin’s panels never deselects your emitters. Work in a panel, and the selection in the Explorer stays as it was.

What is kept between sessions

Kept:

Kept	Detail
Which panels are open	The Re: panel, the PropertyTools panel, Hue, Emit Code and Settings.
The tab in use	For each of the two panels with tabs.
Shown or hidden	The HUD and the Inventory.
On or off	Motion Preview, and the plugin itself.
The sections of the Properties panel	Collapsed or expanded, for each emitter type and each section.
The Settings rows	UI Scale %, AutoEmit Delay, Particle Cap and the three switches.
The scales	The scale of the graph editor and of the Inventory.
The look and the keys	The saved theme, the shortcut bindings and the leader key.

Not kept. Each of these returns to its starting state at every session:

Not kept	Detail
The place and the size of every panel	A panel moved or resized in one session opens in its first place, at its first size, in the next.
The height of each tab’s page
Folded panels	The tray starts empty.
Open or shown	The Tools menu, the Properties panel, the particle counter and the Optimization indicator.
What the tools hold	What Clipboard holds, the last graph copied, and the option rows of Randomize.

Limits

The HUD, Settings, the Tools menu and the Theme Editor cannot be resized from an edge.
The Properties panel, Settings, the Tools menu, the Theme Editor and the Inventory cannot be folded to a chip.
Reset Layout does not move Settings, the Theme Editor, the graph editor or the colour editor.
A panel’s place and size last for the session only.