What preferences are for
The User Preferences dialog holds the defaults that follow you from project to project: marker colours, the scale system new drawings start in, which confirmation prompts you see, and how the mouse behaves on the canvas. They are saved in the browser you are using, so they apply to every project you open there but do not carry over to another machine or to a colleague's login.
Changes take effect immediately. A few also affect the drawing you have open — changing Legend Colour, AoI Colour or Default Scale System updates the current drawing as well as future ones.
Opening the dialog
- 1
Click your name at the bottom of the sidebar. The row shows your avatar, your name and your company, with a chevron on the right.
- 2
Choose User Preferences .
- 3
Pick a tab down the left of the dialog: Appearance, Canvas, Detection, Measurement or Confirmations. Only the settings scroll; the title and the Close button stay put.
- 4
Click Close when you are done. There is no separate Save button.
Hover the beside any switch to read its description. Those descriptions are quoted in the tables below.
The user menu is hidden in Review mode. If you cannot see your name at the bottom of the sidebar, click the sidebar expand icon to return to Takeoff mode first.
Appearance
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Legend Colour | Colour picker for legend rectangles on new drawings. Changing it also recolours legends already on the open drawing. | Red |
| AoI Colour | Colour picker for Areas of Interest on new drawings. Also recolours AoIs already on the open drawing. | Green |
| Stage 3 Thumbnail Size | Five buttons, 1x to 5x, setting how large detection thumbnails render in the sidebar. Purely visual; it does not affect counts or exports. | 1x |
| Detection Border Width | Outline thickness for detection markers, from 1 to 50, with a live preview bar. Each group can still override this from its own colour popover. | 4 |
| Show archived projects | "List archived projects on the Projects page. You can open an archived project to review it, but its files stay locked until you recover it from the project's Actions menu." | Off |
| Auto-rotate drawings on upload | "Reads the text direction of a vector PDF and turns a sideways sheet upright before it is uploaded. Scanned PDFs are checked on the server instead. You can still rotate any drawing by hand afterwards." | On |
Canvas
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Legacy Controls | "Switches to an alternative control scheme. Left-click to place markers and interact, Ctrl/Cmd + left-click drag or middle-mouse to pan." With it off, a plain left-drag pans and Ctrl/Cmd + click places points. | Off |
| Auto hide AoIs | "When you begin a non-AoI action (e.g. starting a takeoff, AutoCount, importing symbols), AoIs are automatically locked and hidden so they don't get in the way." A toast tells you when this happens. | On |
| Live Legend | "Automatically place a Live Legend in the top-left of each file the first time you open it. Has no effect on files you've already opened." | On |
The full before-and-after for Legacy Controls is in Keyboard shortcuts and mouse controls.
Detection
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Search all files in category | "When you detect a new symbol on a vector drawing, or capture a linear takeoff sample, also search every other file in the same category in the background and add the matching groups to them. Files marked Completed are skipped, as are drawings that can't be searched this way (raster-only, or with no scale set)." | On |
Leave Search all files in category on when a category holds several sheets of the same building. One capture on one sheet counts the symbol on all of them, and a toast summarises which drawings were skipped.
Measurement
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Default Scale System | Metric, Architectural or Both. Sets the scale system new drawings start in and switches the open drawing immediately. Architectural shows lengths in feet and inches; Metric and Both show metres. | Metric |
| Show measurements on canvas | "Label each Linear and Area takeoff on the drawing with its measured length or area. Turn off for a cleaner canvas — the values are still shown in the sidebar." | On |
The Actions menu on the canvas has a Show Measurements tick that overrides this for the drawing you are working on without changing the saved preference. See Showing measurements on the drawing.
Confirmations
The card reads: "Ask before these actions. Turning one off is the same as ticking "Don't ask again" in its prompt." Each switch is on while its prompt is shown. If you ticked Don't ask again in one of these prompts and want it back, turn the switch on again here.
| Setting | Prompt it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Deleting a custom item | The confirmation on the Custom Items page | On |
| Removing a zone from a zone template | The per-zone delete on a zone template's page | On |
| Removing an item from a group template | The per-item delete on a group template's page | On |
| Removing an item from an AoI template | The per-item delete on an AoI template's page | On |
| Merging groups across drawings | The dialog offering to repeat a group merge on other drawings in the project | On |
One notice is not listed here: the Notice shown when duplicating a marker inside a group whose scale differs from the drawing's default scale. Its Don't display this message again checkbox cannot be reversed from this dialog.
Settings kept elsewhere
Several preferences are remembered in the same way but are set from the place you use them, not from this dialog.
| Setting | Where | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Draw shape — Box or Polygon for Auto Count | New Takeoff › Options | Box |
| Continuous — keep the takeoff tool armed after each marker | New Takeoff › Options; press Esc to stop | On |
| Draw shape for Pick colour group to ignore | The Ignore Colours & Remove Background dropdown in the sidebar | Box |
| Mask opacity | The slider on the mask bar | 7% |
| Grid view / List view for the project page | The toggle beside Actions on the project page | Grid |
| Table / Cards layout for the Projects page | Actions › Toggle Layout on the Projects page | Table |
| Image detection instead of vector detection, per drawing | The / button at the left of the canvas toolbar | Vector where available |
There is no switch for the legacy Stage 1 flow. Skip Stage 1 is on for every user, so opening a drawing takes you straight to the takeoff workspace.
Resetting everything
Clearing this site's data in your browser removes every preference above, along with per-drawing sidebar state such as collapsed and hidden groups. Your markers, zones and scale settings are stored with the drawing and are unaffected.
Next steps
- Keyboard shortcuts and mouse controls — what Legacy Controls changes, gesture by gesture.
- The scale system — Metric, Architectural and Both explained.
- The Live Legend — the legend the Live Legend preference places for you.
- Areas of Interest — why Auto hide AoIs locks them once you start counting.
- Archiving and recovering a project — what Show archived projects reveals.