Every tab is a sheet, every sheet is part of a file, and the tabs say which.
FILE, top left, has everything to do with files; Undo and Redo sit on EDIT beside it.
| Row | What it does | Key |
|---|---|---|
| New Drawing | A new, empty drawing in a tab of its own - a file of one sheet, not saved yet. | Ctrl+N, Ctrl+T |
| Open... | A drawing from disk, in tabs after the ones already open. Nothing open is closed. A file already open comes to the front instead. | Ctrl+O |
| Open Recent | The last ten files opened or saved, newest first. One that has gone from the disk is taken off the list when you pick it. | |
| Save | The file in front, back where it came from. Never saved, it asks where. | Ctrl+S |
| Save As... | The file in front under a new name - from then on, that file. | Ctrl+Shift+S |
| Save All | Every file with changes. | |
| Add a Sheet to This File | Another sheet in the file in front. | |
| Delete This Sheet from the File | Takes one sheet out of a file of several, after asking - there is no undo for it. | |
| Export... | A picture or a drawing file - see exporting. | Ctrl+E |
| Print... | See printing. | Ctrl+P |
| Open the Example | The etch-a-sketch example, as a new drawing to poke at. | |
| Close This File | The file in front - every sheet of it. | Ctrl+W |
| Exit | Closes the program, asking about each file with changes first. |
Ctrl+M opens the menu from the keyboard.
A file - .hsk - holds one sheet, or several: a floor plan and its details, say, kept together.
Each sheet has its own geometry, view and scale. Along the top, each sheet is a tab:
Ctrl+Tab steps to the next tab. /clear empties the sheet in front and keeps
it. /sheet adds a sheet to this file, /new starts a new drawing.
The program starts on an empty drawing, Untitled 1. It does not open the last drawing by itself - Open Recent is one click away. Opening a file right away replaces that empty drawing, as long as nothing has been drawn on it.
To open drawings straight from the file manager - double-click an .hsk and the program comes up
with it - turn that on once under SETTINGS > File Associations > Set Up on This Computer. It makes
this program available for .hsk files; which program is the default stays your choice, in the
system's own dialog. If the program is already running, a double-clicked drawing lands in the running window as
a tab of its own instead of starting a second copy. A portable copy on a USB stick loses its registration when
the stick lands on a different drive letter or machine; Repair at Start-up on the same menu quietly mends
it each time the program starts.
Saving writes the whole file - every sheet of it - in one go, and only once it is all written does it take the old file's place, so a full disk or a pulled stick leaves the old file whole. A file can be open in one tab group only: Save As onto a file open in another tab is refused.
The file is Heck - the drawing written as text you can read: a block for each sheet, a line or a block for each thing, lengths in feet and inches. You can read it, diff it, and keep it in version control. Nothing in it is compressed or binary. Files saved by a version before 30 September - a line of numbers per thing - still open, and are Heck the next time they are saved.
When another program changes an open file - a second copy, git, a text editor - it is loaded again, and each sheet keeps its view. If there is unsaved work in it, a bar over the drawing asks first: Load theirs or Keep mine, and keeping yours means the next Save writes over theirs. If the file is deleted, the bar offers to save it again.
Closing a file - the cross on its tab, Ctrl+W, or Close This File - closes every sheet of it. If it has changes it asks first: Save, Don't save, or Cancel. A drawing never saved, with nothing on it, goes without a word. Closing the last file leaves a new empty drawing.
Closing the program asks the same about each file with changes, one after another; Cancel at any of them keeps the program open. Don't save means it: nothing comes back next time.
Ctrl+C copies what is picked, Ctrl+X cuts it, Ctrl+V pastes. The paste arrives on the cursor and a click puts it down, so you choose where it lands rather than finding out.
It works across sheets, and that is the point of it: draw a fitting on one sheet, copy it, and put it into the assembly on another. A pasted solid is its own solid - push a face on the copy and the original does not move.
When the program updates itself it has to stop and start again, and it does not make you deal with that. Everything open is written out first - every file and its sheets, which tab you were on, and which files had unsaved work - and put back afterwards exactly as it was, still marked unsaved if it was unsaved.
While a file has changes not saved, a copy of the work is written beside the program every few seconds. Close
the program properly and the copy is thrown away - it is only there in case it goes down: a crash, a power cut, a
kill. Then the next start asks: Recover them brings every drawing back as the file it was, with its changes
still marked unsaved, so Save writes it where it belongs; Start without them starts empty and keeps the copy
beside the settings as heckers-sketch-draft-not-recovered.hsk, which can be opened.
Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y, as far back as you like. Undo covers the geometry, not the view - spinning the model is not something to undo.