Tutorials Basics Getting started
Add-ons and your account list
How add-ons work in every app and edition. Add one once in the Library and it follows your account, loads the first time an app needs it, and updates inside its major version. Sign in on a computer, pin a version, or keep working offline.
What an add-on is
An add-on adds features (a new tool or panel) or data (regulation packs, materials, trade packs) to an app. You add it once in the Library and it is on your account list, so it follows you to every edition: the browser, Studio, the portable build and the apps on a tablet.
Your list
Open Settings › Add-ons › Your add-ons.
- Sign in connects this app to your account. Signed out, the app keeps a list for this device only, and offers to merge it into your account when you sign in. In Studio the sign-in shows a short code to approve in your browser.
- Remove takes an add-on off the list. It is refused while another add-on you keep needs it, and the screen names that add-on. When you remove something, anything that was brought in only for it is taken off too, and the screen says which.
- Check for updates lists every change together. Updates inside the same major version arrive by themselves. A new major version, a changed permission, a pinned version or a lab version always asks you first, and an update is all or nothing: if one file fails its check, nothing changes.
- Keep a version pins it. Follow newest unpins it. Try lab versions moves one add-on to the lab channel.
- Roll back returns to the version you had.
Needs
An add-on can need other add-ons or a shared engine. Add brings them along and tells you what it also adds, how big it is and which permissions it asks for. Engines are shared: one copy serves everything that needs it, and a copy nothing needs is freed after 30 days.
Files that use add-ons
A drawing remembers the add-ons whose data it holds. Open it on a computer that does not have them and the app says "This file uses ..." and offers to add them. Until you do, the data stays in the file untouched.
Offline
Download everything for offline fetches every add-on on your list. Once fetched, Studio and the portable build work with no connection. Each download is checked against its checksum and its signature before it is used.
iPad and iPhone
Add-ons that are only data download as usual. Code add-ons made by CadCraft are already inside the app and are switched on from your list. Code add-ons from outside makers are not offered on the iPad and iPhone apps; the browser app (Add to Home Screen) has them.