Ribbon and project browser is one of the app's three workspace layouts. A ribbon of tabs runs across the top, Properties and a project browser share the left panel, every view you open gets a tab over the drawing, and a status bar sits at the bottom. The tools are the app's own: everything you can do in the classic layout works here too, and your drawing, your menu style and your keys stay as they are.
Pick it
- Open Settings (the gear, or ⌘,Ctrl+,).
- Choose the Global tab, then go to Layout › Workspace.
- Choose Ribbon and project browser.
The layout changes at once. The choice is one for every app in this browser: each app opens in it from then on, and it is in place before the page draws, so you never see the classic layout first.
What is where
- Title bar: the app's name, quick access buttons (open, save, undo, redo), the name of the open file, What each tool does here (a list of every tool with a search box, saying which are ready now and why the others are not), full screen, Help and Settings. In this layout the title bar takes the place of the app bar.
- Ribbon: the app's tools in tabs, each tab in groups. File at the left opens, saves and the rest. Some apps add a tab of their own while you work in a particular mode or workspace; it is lit while it applies and goes away after.
- Options bar: under the ribbon, what the running tool needs from you, or what is selected.
- Left panel: Properties above, and below it the palettes (the project browser and the panel's own content) as tabs. Drag the line between them to share the space.
- View tabs: one tab per view you opened (a sheet, a plan, a scene…). Close one with its close button; the file stays open.
- View bar and status bar: under the drawing, the view's own controls (scale, zoom); at the bottom, the app's messages.
A tool that can't run right now is greyed, and its tooltip says why (for example "Open a file first", or that the app does not have that tool yet). Click it, or press ReturnEnter on it, to read the reason in a box.
Use the ribbon from the keyboard
With a ribbon tab focused, ←← and →→ move between tabs and fn ←Home and fn →End go to the first and the last. EscEsc ends the running tool first, as in the classic layout, and every shortcut and ⌃⇧FCtrl+Shift+F (screen modes) work as before.
Fold the ribbon or give it its own window
- Double-click a ribbon tab to fold the ribbon to its tabs; a click on a tab then shows its tools until you move on. Double-click again to keep it open. The Move the ribbon button at the ribbon's right end has Collapse the ribbon and Keep the ribbon open too. Each app remembers it.
- Move the ribbon › Move to a new window puts the ribbon in a window of its own, for example on a second monitor. Keys pressed there reach the app. Put the ribbon back, or closing that window, brings it home.
The toolbar settings apply to the ribbon: Settings › Global › Toolbar › Icons and labels, Icons only (the ribbon then shows two rows of small icons per group) or Labels only, and Show group names (File, Draw, …).
Your panels stay yours
The left and right panels keep everything described in Arrange the panels: dock, float, pin, hide, tabs, Move to a new window and Reset layout.
Go back to the classic layout
Open Settings › Global › Layout › Workspace and choose CadCraft classic. Every toolbar, tab and panel goes back where it was.
To try another arrangement, see the toolbox and info box layout.