Floors and the Design tab
Part 3 — Reference.
17.1 Why floors exist
A floor is a plan of part of the building with your devices arranged on it. Floors are organisational, not electrical — putting a device on the "First floor" plan changes nothing about how it behaves.
What they change is whether you can find anything. On a project with 200 devices, a good floor layout is the difference between a five-second job and a five-minute one, every time.
Floors are also where wires are drawn, so devices must be placed before they can be programmed.
17.2 Managing floors
Project ribbon tab → Floors group:
Add floor
Creates a floor
Edit floor
Opens the floor's settings — name, background image, size
Delete floor
Removes it, after "Do you realy want to delete floor?"
Each floor appears as a tab above the workspace.
Deleting a floor deletes the icons on it. The units stay in the Device manager, but every icon — and therefore every wire drawn from those icons — goes. Move things off first.
17.3 Placing devices
Switch to the Design workspace tab.
Go to the Controls ribbon tab — a gallery of icons. Right-click its header to choose which category is shown.
Drag an icon onto the plan.
Icons come in two kinds:
Basic object
a single input or output
one relay output, one button
Compound object
a whole unit, or all system devices of one type
an SA3-02M, all timers, all system bits
Both behave identically.
17.4 The yellow dot
A freshly placed icon carries a yellow dot — it is a picture, connected to nothing.
Click the icon and the settings panel appears on the right:
Name
What this object is called throughout the project
Connect
Opens Select device — the list of every connectable input and output, each with its hex address and name. Double-click to assign.
Disconnect
Breaks the assignment
Delete
Removes the icon from the plan
size
Icon size on the plan
layer
Which layer it appears on
description
Free text
Assigning clears the yellow dot.
When a wire does nothing, check for yellow dots first. An unassigned icon can be wired, named, and included in groups, and none of it has any effect.
17.5 Background images
Floor plans are much easier to read over an actual drawing. Set the image in Edit floor.
Image opacity is set per workspace tab, in [☰] → Settings → Floors image opacity:
Design:
the Design tab
Groups:
the Groups tab
Functions:
the Function tab
Simulation:
the Simulation tab
Separate values are genuinely useful: a strong plan helps while placing devices, and a faint one keeps wires readable while programming.
17.6 Layers, grid and alignment
Visible layers:
above the workspace
Which layers are shown
All layers visible / All layers hidden
Show or hide everything at once
Visible grid
Shows the alignment grid
Snap to grid
Snaps icons to it
Layers separate lighting from heating from blinds on the same plan, so you can look at one system at a time. Snap to grid is worth leaving on — aligned plans are quicker to read.
17.7 Wire animation
[☰] → Settings → Visual effects:
Show device wires animation
Animates the connections between devices
Show group connections animation
Animates group membership lines
Both are helpful when learning and distracting later. Turn them off on large projects — they cost redraw time.
17.8 Practical advice
One floor per storey or zone
Matching the real building beats any clever scheme
Use a real drawing as the background
Costs a minute, saves hours
Name icons as you place them
Renaming 200 icons later is nobody's idea of a good afternoon
Layers per system
Lighting, heating, blinds
Check for yellow dots before uploading
The cheapest bug you will ever fix
Next: Chapter 18 — The wire editor.