Options Panel

To change program preferences in the Graphical User Interface select: Tools > Options. On a Mac OS, the equivalent panel is called Preferences, and is available from Cubit > Preferences The options panel includes a series of Tabs, containing categories of global settings to customize the Cubit environment. The following categories are available:

• Command Panels
• Display
• General
• Geometry Defaults
• History and Cubit Journalling
• Label Defaults
• Layout
• Mesh Defaults
• Mouse Settings
• Post Processor
• Quality Defaults

Command Panels

This menu controls how command panels are displayed and managed, including which style of button hierarchy is displayed.

• Command Panel Behavior
  • Automatic Input Field Focus -
  • Automatic Panel Reset
• Panel Warnings
  • Hide Mesh Warning - Hide the warning dialog that appears when trying to mesh entities that already contain a mesh.
• Navigation Hierarchy
  • Classic (Restart Required) - Toggle between entity-first hierarchy (Classic) and action-first hierarchy (Non-classic). This changes the arrangement and navigation of panels in the geometry mode of the command panel. The classic navigation arranges the icons so that entities are first selected, followed by an action. For the non-Classic mode, the action is first selected followed by the entity type. A restart is required to see changes in the command panel navigation hierarchy.
• Boundary Condition Modules - Disable/Enable the display of GUI tools used for managing commercial FEA and CFD model preparation. These options are available only in non-classic navigation hierarchy. Uncheck the Classic checkbox to enable these options.
  • FEA (Restart Required) - Enable or Disable the FEA GUI tools
  • CFD (Restart Required) - Enable or Disable the CFD GUI tools

Display Preferences

This menu controls entity display features for the graphics window which include the following:

• Display Triad in Graphics Window
• Enable Pre-Selection
• Background Color
• Perspective Angle
• Line Width
• Highlight Line Width
• Text Size
• Ambient Intensity
• Ambient Color
• Light Intensity
• Light Color

General Preferences

This menu controls general program options including the following:

• Prompt for Unsaved Application Data - When this is checked and the user opens a new .cub file or exits the application with unsaved changes, a dialog box will pop up asking if they want to save changes first. The user can uncheck this option to prevent that dialog box from appearing. This is checked by default.
• Prompt for Unsaved Journal Data - When this button is checked and the user closes the journal file editor with unsaved changes the program will prompt to save the changes. The user can uncheck this button to prevent the dialog box from appearing. It is checked by default.
• Change to Script Directory for Playback - When this option is checked, Claro will change the working directory to the directory the script is in when the script/journal file is run. When the script is finished, Claro will change the directory back to the previous one. This is useful when using relative paths in a journal file. When the option is unchecked, Claro won't change the directory when a journal file is run in which case the user may have to manually change the working directory when their journal file has relative paths.
• Prompt When Translating from Python - When checked, if the user translates a python script to a cubit journal file, the journal editor will warn them that commands may be lost. When unchecked, the journal editor will not issue the warning. There is a checkbox on the warning dialog that sets this option as well.
• Default Syntax - Sets the default syntax to use when creating a new journal file in the editor. The Cubit option is only available when the cubit component is loaded.
• Show Startup Splash Screen - Option to hide the startup splash screen on opening Claro.

Geometry Defaults

This menu controls the geometry defaults.

• Vertex Size
• Use Silhouette on Geometry
• Silhouette pattern

The user can also change the default geometry engine to one of the following:

• ACIS
• Facets

The faceting tolerance can also be controlled from this menu to change the way facets are drawn in the graphics window.

History Preferences

This menu controls the input window history and journal file options. These include:

• Maximum Number of Commands - The max number of commands kept in the current command history.  
• Comment Line Filtering - Whether to count comments in command history.
• Maximum Number of Lines - Maximum number of lines in input window.
• Journal Command History - Whether to use a journal file to save command history. Default is to use a journal file.
• Journal File Directory - Where the journal file will be saved. Default is the starting directory.
• Journal File Name   - The name of the journal file. A name will be given by default if one is not specified. The default name for the GUI version of cubit is historyxx.jou with xx as the highest used number between 01 and 999 incremented by 1.

Cubit History Preferences

• Use Cubit Journaling - When this option is checked, Cubit journaling will be used. By default it is checked.
• Output Log - When this option is checked, you can save error log to a separate output file.

Label Defaults

This menu controls the geometry and mesh entity labels in the graphics window.

• Text Size
• Label Geometry and Mesh Entities Toggles- Choose label visibility for each type of geometry or mesh entity

Layout Preferences

This menu option controls input window formatting and control panel docking options.

• Font for command line workspace
• Font size for command line workspace
• Reset Window Layout Button - Used to reset GUI windows to their default positions

Also included in the layout preferences is a list of available windows with a checkbox to show/hide each window.

Cubit Layout Settings

This menu controls the layout of Cubit specific buttons and tabs on the GUI.

• Show script tab - Shows the script tab on the command line window
• Use Labels on Buttons- Option to apply a label to each button on the control panel
• Preferred Location (currently under construction)

Mesh Defaults

• Node Size
• Element Shrink
• Mesh Line Color - The same as "Color Lines" command.
• Default Element Type - Tet/Tri or Hex/Quad
• Surface Scheme Coloring (used in Meshing Power Tool) - This option allows you to select different colors for surface schemes when visualized using the meshing power tools.

Mouse Settings

This menu controls mouse button controls. Pressing the Emulate Command Line Settings button will cause all of the settings to simulate mouse controls in the command line version of CUBIT. For a detailed description of mouse settings see the View Navigation-GUI page.

Post Processor Settings

Post Processor Executable Directory - Option to browse for post processor executable directory.

Quality Defaults

This menu controls quality defaults for different quality metrics. For a description of the different quality metrics see the respective pages:

• Hexahedral metrics
• Quadrilateral metrics
• Tetrahedral metrics
• Triangular metrics