About Property Panels

Property Panels provide contextual access to parameters used for creating and editing features.

What's New: 2022,2024, 2025

The property panel floats above the graphic area and, initially, appears in the upper left of the graphics area. Panels can be resized, combined with the Model browser, moved to another location, and even to a secondary monitor. Property Panels use parameter groups with an accordion control instead of tabs.

Key Concepts

Tool Palette

Some commands include a tool palette. Tool palettes expose options useful for the command during its operation. Tool palettes are docked to the property panel by default.

Understanding the Property Panel user interface

These are some of the behaviors you will see in the property panel.

Breadcrumbs horizontally display the current or active location in the document hierarchy. They can provide access to documents, features, and sketches depending on document type.

Typically, the property panel begins in the feature definition mode. You can click the breadcrumb text to switch environments, from Feature to Sketch and back again. The breadcrumb text for the selected environment displays in blue.

You can also use the Return to Feature command in the ribbon to switch from sketch editing back to feature editing. The icon displays the active feature being created or edited, such as Extrude, Revolve, and so on.

Important: During feature preview visible sketch dimensions can be edited without entering the sketch environment.

Switching environments causes the current environment to commit any changes made before the switch occurs. Thus, switching to Sketch from Feature will create the defined feature before the environment changes. Switching back from Sketch to Feature causes any sketch geometry changes to be accepted before the environment change. The property panel fields update with the environment change.

You can edit the Feature or Sketch name by means of the breadcrumb.

  1. Click the breadcrumb text you want to edit to activate it.
  2. Click again to enter edit mode.
  3. Modify the text.
  4. Press Enter to complete the change. The browser node name is updated when you click OK to complete the feature.
Note: If you change from one breadcrumb item to another, all Property Panel changes are automatically preserved.

Advanced Settings Menu

The Property panel menu contains settings related to the active create or edit command context and the document type. The menu entries are contextual, they display only options the command can use. Some advanced settings override default behaviors. In some cases, these settings are On by default. Select the menu entry to turn the option ON/OFF.

The property panel state for these settings is retained between sessions. Thus, if you turn one off, and later want to use it, you will need to turn it back on.

Note: Legacy ENTER behavior can be used by turning on the Single ENTER to finish command.

Property Panel Navigation

Tab key

You can tab from one field to another, whether in the property panel or canvas. When you tab in-canvas, the tabs are for the displayed parameters. When you tab in the property panel, tabbing occurs for those parameters listed in the panel. Cross-highlighting occurs for the related fields.

Character key

When in a dropdown list, use the character key to quickly search for and locate a list entry.

Property Panel and In-canvas Editing

When creating or editing features you can use the edit fields in the Property panel, the in-canvas edit fields, or the feature manipulators to modify values.

The following example uses the Hole feature to illustrate the various parameter value access points.

The default behavior for the property panel and in-canvas edit controls allows you to use keyboard entry. When editing a value input the following applies:

The legacy ENTER behavior can be recovered as mentioned above in Advanced Settings Menu section.

Selector States

The property panel selectors display their states using colors. Click in a selector field to activate it. The following image shows the states and ties them to an example.

Clearing Selections

When a selection is made, the selector field displays the number of items selected and an 'X' at the right end of the field. To clear the selection set, click the 'X', then, make your next selections.

Marking Menu

If the required inputs are not satisfied, the marking menu displays either a disabled OK button or a Continue button in the 3 o'clock position to alert you of the need to complete the definition.

Undo Behavior

Undo has a slightly different behavior when the command is displaying a property panel or dialog. Here's how it works:

Advanced Properties

This section populates with the more specialized options based on the feature type being created.

Topics for Commands that use Property Panels