dbweave · DB-WEAVE Manual · Menu reference

Menu reference

This chapter lists every menu command in DB-WEAVE with a short description and its keyboard shortcut. For larger tasks worked through end-to-end, see the Tutorials.

File menu

New (Ctrl+N) — creates a new pattern.

New from template… — creates a new pattern based on a template.

Open… (Ctrl+O) — opens an existing pattern from disk.

Open in new window… — opens a pattern in a separate window, leaving the current pattern untouched.

Load parts… — loads only part of a pattern. Example: you have built a warp colour gradient in another pattern and want to reuse it. Load just the warp colours and the colour palette into the current pattern.

Save (Ctrl+S) — saves the pattern to disk.

Save as… — saves the pattern under a different name.

Revert changes — restores the last saved state, discarding everything done since then. To undo only the last few changes, use Edit → Undo instead.

Import → WIF file… — imports a pattern in the WIF interchange format used by many other weaving programs (Weavepoint, PCW Fiberworks, etc.).

Export → PNG file… — saves the pattern as a PNG image.

Export → JPEG file… — saves the pattern as a JPEG image.

Export → SVG file… — saves the pattern as a scalable SVG vector image.

Export → PDF file… — saves the pattern as a PDF document.

Export → WIF file… — saves the pattern in the WIF interchange format.

Properties… — pattern metadata. Stored fields:

• Author — the pattern's author.
• Organisation — the author's organisation. Leave blank if none.
• Remarks — free text.

Author and Organisation can be inserted into the page header or footer when printing (see Page setup…).

Page setup… — page margins (cm) and printable header / footer lines. The header and footer accept the following placeholders:

• &Pattern — pattern name
• &File — full file path
• &Author — author from Properties
• &Organisation — organisation from Properties
• &Page — page number

Print preview — shows how the pattern will be printed. The preview shows layout only; fine details are not visible at this scale.

Print… (Ctrl+P) — prints the current pattern. The pattern is printed exactly as it appears on screen. To suppress the threading on the printout, hide it with View → Threading before printing.

Print part… (Ctrl+L) — prints a freely chosen warp / weft / shaft / treadle range. Enter 0 0 for any range you want to suppress.

Recently used files — the last six edited files appear inline at the bottom of the File menu for quick re-opening.

Exit — exits the program.

Edit menu

Undo (Ctrl+Z) — undoes the last change. Up to 100 steps.

Redo (Ctrl+Y) — redoes the last undone change.

Cut (Ctrl+X) — cuts the selection to the clipboard.

Copy (Ctrl+C) — copies the selection.

Paste (Ctrl+V) — pastes at the cursor.

Paste transparently (Ctrl+B) — pastes at the cursor, overlaid on the existing pattern instead of overwriting it.

Invert (I) — inverts the selection.

Mirror horizontal (H) — mirrors the selection at a vertical axis.

Mirror vertical (V) — mirrors at a horizontal axis.

Rotate (R) — rotates the selection 90° clockwise. Only square selections can be rotated.

Make central symmetric (Z) — makes the selection point-symmetric about its centre.

Delete (Del) — deletes the selection.

Roll → Up / Down / Left / Right (Ctrl+6 / 7 / 8 / 9) — rolls the selection in the given direction.

Slope → Increase / Decrease (Ctrl+H / Ctrl+J) — changes the slope of the selection.

Move → Harness up (Ctrl+F7) — moves the harness (shaft) under the cursor up by one position.

Move → Harness down (Ctrl+F8) — moves the harness under the cursor down by one position.

Move → Treadle left (Ctrl+F5) — moves the treadle under the cursor one position to the left.

Move → Treadle right (Ctrl+F6) — moves the treadle under the cursor one position to the right.

Insert → Harness / Treadle / End / Pick (Shift+S / Shift+T / Shift+K / Shift+F) — inserts a new harness, treadle, warp end or weft pick at the cursor. If a selection is active, Insert → End inserts as many ends as the selection is wide; same logic applies to picks.

Delete → Harness / Treadle / End / Pick (Shift+Ctrl+S / T / K / F) — deletes the corresponding element under the cursor.

Lancee → Warp lancee… — inserts lancée warp ends.

Lancee → Weft lancee… — inserts lancée weft picks.

Twill completion (Ctrl+K) — completes a twill from a single seed pick or end. Enter the first pick (or end), select exactly one repeat of it, and choose this command. The twill is completed across the selection. There must be enough free space in the selection for the twill to extend into.

Switch side (F11) — switches to the back of the fabric: the tie-up (or, in pegplan mode, the pegplan within the active weft range) is inverted, and the warp side is mirrored.

View menu

Reed threading — toggles display of the reed threading.

Color (Ctrl+A) — toggles the warp and weft colour bars.

Threading (Ctrl+E) — toggles the threading.

Treadling (Ctrl+T) — toggles the treadling.

Support lines — toggles screen rulers along the top and left edges. Click in a ruler to add a support line; drag to move; click an existing line in the ruler to remove.

Only pattern — hides threading, treadling and tie-up. Useful for teachers preparing exercises. Combine with File → Print part to vary the printed shaft / treadle counts.

View → Invisible (Ctrl+/) — shows an empty grid sheet. Same teaching use case as above.

View → Draft (Ctrl+1) — default black-and-white view.

View → Color (Ctrl+2) — uses the warp and weft colours; produces a colour-and-weave effect view.

View → Fabric (Ctrl+3) — schematic view of the actual interlacement. Not photo-realistic; intended as an educational view that makes floats and irregularities easy to spot.

Zoom in (Ctrl+I) — zoom in.

Normal — restore default zoom.

Zoom out (Ctrl+U) — zoom out.

Overview (F4) — full-pattern overview window. Useful when working with large repeats.

Tools — toggles the drawing-tools toolbar (Point, Line, Rectangle, Filled rectangle, Ellipse, Filled ellipse). The tools are best used in pegplan mode; when active, only the draft view is available.

Palette — toggles the colour palette panel (also reachable from Color → Palette).

Threading menu

Threading assistant… — opens an interactive assistant that builds a threading from your inputs (number of shafts, repeat structure, etc.).

Mirror all — mirrors the entire threading horizontally.

Delete — clears the threading.

Normal rising — rising arrangement using the smallest possible number of shafts.

Normal falling — falling arrangement, smallest shafts.

Straight rising — rising straight arrangement.

Straight falling — falling straight arrangement.

2 choirs — odd ends on the first choir, even ends on the second.

3 choirs — three-choir arrangement.

User defined… — use a previously entered user-defined threading.

Copy from treadling — copies the treadling into the threading.

Treadling menu

Mirror — mirrors the treadling vertically.

Delete — clears the treadling.

Normal rising — rising arrangement, smallest treadles.

Normal falling — falling arrangement, smallest treadles.

Crossed — crossed arrangement, comfortable on a hand loom.

Copy from threading — copies the threading into the treadling.

Tie-up menu

Invert — inverts the entire tie-up.

Delete — clears the tie-up.

Roll → Up / Down / Left / Right (Shift+Ctrl+6 / 7 / 8 / 9) — rolls the tie-up.

Slope → Increase / Decrease (Shift+Ctrl+H / Shift+Ctrl+J) — changes the slope. Requires a non-empty threading and treadling.

Make central symmetric — makes the tie-up point-symmetric.

Pegplan menu

Invert — inverts the entire pegplan.

Delete — clears the pegplan.

Mirror — mirrors the pegplan vertically.

Insert menu

Satin — inserts a satin (5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9- or 10-end) at the cursor.

Twill → Balanced — inserts a balanced twill (2/2, 3/3, 4/4 or 5/5) at the cursor.

Twill → Warp sided — inserts a warp-sided twill (2/1, 3/1, 4/1, 5/1, 3/2, 4/2, 5/2, 4/3 or 5/3) at the cursor.

Additional — up to ten user-defined patterns, used like the predefined ones.

Administration → Add current pattern… — adds the whole current pattern to the user-defined library. Pattern must be at most 50×50 threads.

Administration → Add selection… — adds the current selection to the user-defined library. Same 50×50 limit.

Administration → Remove… — removes a user-defined pattern.

The ten user-defined patterns work like an extension of the clipboard:

• Shift+Ctrl+C — save the selection as one of the ten patterns.
• Shift+Ctrl+V — paste a user-defined pattern at the cursor.
• Shift+Ctrl+B — paste transparently.

Repeat menu

Repeat visible (Ctrl+R) — toggles the repeat indicator. When active, the repeat is shown in red and any change inside it is mirrored across the rest of the pattern.

Repeat… (F8) — repeat dialog. Fields:

• Horizontal — desired horizontal repetitions.
• Vertical — desired vertical repetitions.
• Repeat all — repeat to maximum available size. Slow on large patterns; use with caution.
• Repeat color — whether to repeat the colour bars too.

Reduce (F7) — reduces the pattern back to a single repeat.

Invert repeat colors — swaps the colours used for the repeat indicator.

Color menu

Palette (Ctrl+F) — toggles the colour palette panel. The active colour is outlined in white.

Edit colors… — opens a colour-editing dialog for the selected palette entry, with both RGB and HSV controls.

Color blending… — interpolate between two palette colours over a chosen number of steps. The Palette index field is where the generated colours are written. Use Weighting to bias the interpolation toward one of the endpoints. Color model for interpolation selects RGB or HSV interpolation.

Set warp color… — fills the entire warp colour bar with the chosen palette colour.

Set weft color… — same for the weft.

Replace color… — when the cursor is on a warp or weft colour cell, replaces every occurrence of that colour with another.

Warp colors as weft colors — copies the weft colours to the warp.

Weft colors as warp colors — copies the warp colours to the weft.

Switch colors — swaps warp and weft colours.

Range menu

Import bitmap… — imports an image as a pattern. Use at most ten distinct colours, since DB-WEAVE assigns one range per colour. Normally followed by a range substitution.

Current range → Range 1…9 (Shift+1…9) — activates the chosen range.

Current range → Lift out (Shift+0) — activates the lift-out range, used in double / multiple weaves.

Current range → Binding (Ctrl+0) — activates the binding range.

Current range → Unbinding (Shift+Ctrl+0) — activates the unbinding range.

Block substitution… — every set point of the tie-up is replaced by one full pattern, every unset point by another.

Range substitution… — each used range is replaced by its assigned pattern.

Extras menu

Pattern locked — when active, the pattern cannot be edited directly; only threading, treadling and tie-up (or pegplan) accept changes.

Cursor → Contained (Ctrl+Q) — when the repeat is visible, restricts the cursor to inside the repeat.

Cursor → Movement… — direction the cursor advances after toggling a binding point: Up, Down, Left, Right (or no movement). Hold Ctrl+Alt to see the current direction in the status bar; while holding them, use the arrow keys to change it.

Cursor → Go to… (Ctrl+G) — jumps the cursor into one of the main fields.

Weft/warp-ratio… — relative thread thickness. Warp factor and Weft factor control the visible width / height of the threads.

Pegplan (F9) — toggles between tie-up and pegplan mode.

Weave (Ctrl+W) — switches to weave mode (see Loom control).

Information… — pattern statistics window. Save writes the information to RTF (readable in Word and similar); Print sends it to the current printer.

Base settings → American / Scandinavian / German/Swiss — switches the conventions to the chosen tradition.

Options → For this pattern… — applies only to the current pattern.

Options → Global… — applies to the current pattern and any new pattern. Tabs:

Sizes

• Shafts, Treadles — maximum count. The program may extend these dynamically as needed.
• Ends, Picks — maximum warp ends / weft picks.
• Visible shafts, Visible treadles — how many are displayed.

Defaults: 30 shafts (12 visible), 30 treadles (12 visible), 300 ends, 300 picks. Larger limits make the program slower.

Settings

• Single treadle — only one treadle per pick.
• Multiple treadle — more than one treadle per pick (the engine still assigns one when recalculating).
• Rising shed — a filled square is a raised warp thread.
• Sinking shed — a filled square is a raised weft thread.

Grid

• Horizontal — distance between vertical emphasis lines (default 4).
• Vertical — distance between horizontal emphasis lines (default 4).

Symbols

Field-cell appearance: Filled, Vertical, Cross, Point, Circle, Rising, Falling, Small cross, Small circle, Number.

View

• Threading below pattern — show the threading below instead of above.
• Work direction in threading and pattern from right to left.
• Work direction in threading and tie-up from top to bottom.
• Color effect view with grid — overlay grid in colour view.
• Use alternate color palette — switches palettes; user-defined colours are lost.
• Use alternate pegplan view — flips the pegplan presentation. No effect when the threading is below the pattern.

Options → Environment… — application-wide settings, including the program language (English / German).

? menu

Help topics (F1) — opens the online manual in your web browser.

Brunold Software Online — opens the Brunold Software website in your web browser.

Technical information… — version, license state, and basic system information. Useful when reporting problems.

About DB-WEAVE… — version and credits.