Parts

The Parts panel is a library of parts to drag onto a drawing: glue flaps, tuck and dust flaps, locks, hang holes, or any drawing of your own. A part dropped on a drawing is placed as with the Part Import tool: full size, as one element, its variables with the same names as the drawing's (L, W, D, GLUE …) taking the drawing's values. So a glue flap made to the depth D fits whichever box it is dropped on, and changes when D does.

Show it with View › Panels › Parts. It starts as a tab beside Help.

Placing a part

Drag a part from the panel onto the drawing. As you drag, it is shown where it will go, its origin (its drawing's [0,0]) at the pointer.

• Dropped on a point (or near one, a ringed point showing which), it is placed on that point. Drop a glue flap on a panel's corner and it stays on that corner.
• Dropped anywhere else, it is placed on a new point defined from the nearest point (P3+[40,25]), so it still moves with the drawing. Nothing is fixed in space.

Its X axis points to the right, to a second new point 10 to the right of its origin. Move that point to turn the part.

Parts with part markers

A part can say where it goes with part markers: points marked with the Set Point Tool's Part Marker option, such as a hand hole's centre, or the two ends of a flap's hinge. They are drawn in the part as a numbered, ringed cross, but never exported or plotted. A part can have up to four.

• One marker: the part is dropped with its marker on the place dropped on (snapped to a point near it, as above).
• Two or more: its first marker goes where it is dropped. Then click where each of the others goes, in order (a point near the pointer is snapped to). The part is shown fitted to the places as you go, and is placed with the last click. Two markers move, turn and scale the part to fit; three fit any affine map (stretched or skewed); four fit a perspective (a homography), lines staying straight. Esc stops without placing it.

The part is placed on the points dropped and clicked on, PART @1,[P10,P11],"Flap",0, and follows them: move a point and the part is fitted again. A part without markers is placed as described above.

The part's own values

Select a part in the panel to see its variables below the list, each with a box for a value of its own. Only the variables the drawing you are dropping on hasn't are listed: those it has take the drawing's values anyway. Type a value (or an expression in the drawing's variables, such as GLUE*2) and it is given to each copy of the part you drop afterwards, written in its PART line (,W=80); leave a box blank for the part's own value, shown faint. Clear Values clears them. The part markers still decide where the part goes and how it is fitted. The part is kept once in the drawing's own part library, however many times it is placed, and the drop is undone in one step.

Drawing on a part's points

The points a part's lines are drawn on, and its part markers, can be snapped to like any other: hold the pointer over one, and it is marked. Clicking it (in any snap mode, with any tool) makes a point of the drawing's own, defined from the part's: P10=@5.P3 is point P3 of part @5, placed where the part is, worked out with the part's values. Draw on it, measure from it or dimension to it; it follows the part when the part is moved or turned, and the part's drawing when that changes. A part's own points aren't drawn, so the drawing isn't crowded with them.

Each is the part's point by its number. If the part's drawing is changed so that it no longer has that point (it was taken out, or merged by Tidy Drawing), the point can't be worked out, and says so.

Deleting a part that points are defined from asks what to do with them: keep the part on the Construction layer, so they go on following it, or fix them where they are (see Points).

Where parts come from

The parts are the drawing files (.piq) in the Parts folder of each Extensions folder, and in the folders in it, shown as the panel's folders:

• Your own: PiQ/Extensions/Parts in your application data. Open Folder opens it (and makes it, the first time).
• The app's: a few to start with: in Packaging, a glue flap, a tuck flap and a dust flap; in Features, a hang slot, a round hang hole, a hand hole, a thumb notch, a window and a slit lock, each centred on its origin (the thumb notch on its edge), its sizes labelled variables; and in Symbols, the marks printed on packaging (handling, recycling, the estimated sign, registration and crop marks …), each sized by its height and drawn on a Graphics layer of its own, which is added to the drawing it is dropped on: see Packaging Symbols.
• Accessories: bought-in fitments for packaging, picture framing, sign making, sewing and leather goods (handles, hang tabs, window film, cords, hangers, stand-offs, zips, snaps …), shown in 3D and costed: see Accessories and Fitments.

A part's elements go on the drawing's layers of the same names; a layer of the part's own that the drawing hasn't (not one of the standard layers), such as the symbols' Graphics layer, is added to the drawing when the part is dropped. A part of yours with the same folder and name as one of the app's is shown instead of it. Refresh reads the folders again, after you have changed them yourself.

Making a part

Draw it as usual, its fold or the point it hangs from at the origin [0,0], along the X axis. Use the same variable names for its sizes as the drawings it will go on, so it takes their values: the app's flaps use D (depth), L (length), W (width), GLUE and TUCK, as the Run Parametric cartons do. Then save it with File › Save to Library….

Save to Library

File › Save to Library… saves a copy of the drawing into one of the libraries, leaving the drawing (and its own file) as it is:

• Library: Parts, to drag from the Parts panel, or Run Parametric, to run with its own values as a new drawing (see Run Parametric).
• Folder: a folder in the library, folders in it separated by / (Packaging/Flaps); empty for the top. The folders already there are listed.
• Name: the file's name.

Where it will be saved is shown as you type. If there is a drawing there already, you are asked before it is replaced. The Parts panel shows a part saved into it straight away.