Two ways of looking at the same drawing
The workspace has two modes, and the width of the sidebar is what decides which one you are in.
- Takeoff mode is the normal working view. The sidebar is a narrow panel listing the groups on the current drawing, and the full toolbar is available.
- Review mode widens the sidebar into a full panel with a tab for every drawing in the project and a Total tab. It is built for checking a finished count against the rest of the project and exporting it.
Nothing is locked in either mode. You can switch back and forth as often as you like, and markers you place in Takeoff mode are exactly what Review mode shows.
Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3
Older guides, colleagues and screenshots often name these modes by stage number rather than by name. The three stages were:
| Stage | What it meant |
|---|---|
| Stage 1 | A pass before the drawing opened, where you adjusted the automatically detected Areas of Interest and legends and pressed Submit to detect the legend symbols found inside them. |
| Stage 2 | Reviewing and amending the detected symbols, adding markers for anything missed, and moving markers into the right groups. This is Takeoff mode. |
| Stage 3 | Reviewing and organising groups ready for export. This is Review mode. |
Stage 1 belongs to the legacy flow. New drawings skip it: pressing Submit on the project page opens the workspace directly, and you count with Auto Count Symbol or Auto Detect Symbols instead of relying on the legend pass. See The legacy Stage 1 flow if you need to work with a drawing that went through it.
So in current usage there are two modes, not three stages: Takeoff, and Review.
Switching modes
The toggle is the second button in the sidebar toolbar.
- 1
In Takeoff mode, click Expand sidebar at the top of the sidebar. The sidebar widens into Review mode.
- 2
To return, click Collapse sidebar in the same place. The sidebar narrows back to Takeoff mode.
The button is drawn filled while you are in Review mode, so you can tell the modes apart at a glance even before the tabs load.
What changes in Review mode
| Area | Takeoff mode | Review mode |
|---|---|---|
| Header toolbar | Detection engine, mask, paper size, scale, Actions, New Takeoff | Export only |
| Sidebar width | Narrow panel | Full-width panel |
| File tabs | None | One tab per drawing, then a bold Total tab |
| Sidebar search | Shown | Hidden |
| Thumbnail scale | Not shown | Badges 1x to 5x in the sidebar toolbar resize detection thumbnails |
| Floating marker menu | Appears beside a selected marker | Not shown |
| Visibility, Cover All, Hide All | Available | Disabled |
| Annotations view mode | Available | Disabled |
| AoIs, Legends & Zones and Ignore Colours buttons | Shown | Hidden |
| User menu at the foot of the sidebar | Shown | Hidden |
The canvas itself behaves the same in both modes: you can still zoom, pan, select and delete markers.
The file tabs and the Total tab
Across the top of the Review panel there is one tab per drawing, grouped by category. The active drawing's tab carries a small dot; a second dot shows when a colleague has the same drawing open.
- Click another drawing's tab to see a read-only summary of its groups, counts and totals without leaving the drawing you have open.
- Click Total to see a table of every group across every drawing in the project, with the same search box as the sidebar.
- When a non-active tab or Total is selected, Refresh summaries appears at the right of the tab strip to pull the latest figures.
- Right-click a tab for Download or Delete. Deleting asks you to confirm and removes the drawing with all of its markers.
See The cross-drawing summary for what you can do from another drawing's tab, including merging and deleting groups across drawings.
Which mode to use when
Stay in Takeoff mode for everything that changes a single drawing: counting, measuring, moving markers between groups, linking groups to database items and drawing zones. Switch to Review mode when the drawing is done and you want to:
- Check that a symbol is named the same way on every drawing before export.
- Compare counts of the same group across floors.
- Tidy duplicate groups across the project.
- Export the quantities workbook or drawing images.
Marking a drawing complete is an Actions menu item, so do it in Takeoff mode before switching to Review. Completed drawings show a badge on the project page and are skipped by the automatic search across other drawings.
Common issues
The Actions menu has disappeared
You are in Review mode. Click Collapse sidebar to narrow the sidebar and the full toolbar returns.
Clicking a marker shows no floating menu
The floating action menu is a Takeoff-mode feature. Switch back to Takeoff mode and select the marker again.
Another drawing's tab shows old counts
Summaries for other drawings are loaded when you open their tab. Click Refresh summaries at the right of the tab strip.
Next steps
- The cross-drawing summary — reading and acting on other drawings' groups from Review mode.
- Merging and deleting across drawings — tidying duplicate groups before export.
- Exporting to Excel — the Export button in detail.
- Drawing status — marking drawings complete and what that changes.
- A tour of the takeoff workspace — the rest of the workspace controls.