Input panel

Any object available in SCIA Engineer may be inputted via the Input panel. The Input panel is by default located at the bottom middle of the screen, but this component can be dragged to any desired location on the screen.

Because there are many different objects available in SCIA Engineer, the panel allows the user to work with workstations and separate categories. This way the user can start with the "Structure" workstation to input the structural elements and their boundary conditions and then the user can continue with applying loads by using the "Loads" workstation. Much like the main menu or the Spotlight, the Input panel will show a Tooltip with more information after hovering on any command for two seconds.

"Tags" is a concept that presents an overall filter to show only the most used commands (use tags "Basic modelling" or "Quick input") or tags can apply a filter based on the modelled structure. For a steel structure the user can use tag "1D" and for masonry or for a concrete project the user can use tag "2D" to filter out structural objects that the user does not need to use.

We allow multiple settings to allow the user a clear navigation of the Input panel. The settings are accessible via the hamburger icon.

The options are following:

• View the panel only in icon mode or together with the name and hotkey of the commands (very similar to seeing commands in the main menu). If the Input panel is not wide enough to fit the icons and the names of the commands, it is by default also displayed in the icon mode.

• The user can either show or hide the names of separate categories.

  Note: when the user gets familiar with the icons we created, we recommend using the Input panel in the icon mode.