Panels, layout and settings

The window

Along the top are the menus and under them the toolbar: the tools, Snap and Turn, Select by, History, Account and Share. Down the left are the parts bin and its colours. Down the right are the model tree and properties, and the assistant when it is on, as a tab beside them: the strip at the column's edge has one for each, and a click on one shows it. Along the foot, the status bar says what just happened and what a press will do, and a strip of the commonest keys sits over the model.

Your own keys

Every tool has a key: Shift+X Move, Shift+O Rotate, Shift+I Hinge, Shift+V Clone, Shift+P Paint, Shift+G Hide and Shift+Delete Delete. C paints what is selected; with nothing selected, it says how to paint.

Coming from another program? In the keys sheet (F1), or in Settings, Keys like puts on the keys of BrickLink Studio, Mecabricks or LDCad: with Studio's, V is Select, C Clone, H Hinge, L Hide, Ctrl+G makes a sub-model, the arrows turn the part, and W A S D move it.

To set a key yourself, click it in the keys sheet and press the one you want. Esc keeps the old key, Backspace leaves it with none. A key another command already has is refused, and the sheet says whose it is. A few keys are kept for themselves (Esc, Enter, Tab, F1), and in a browser the browser's own (Ctrl+N, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W). Back to these keys drops the ones you set. Your keys stay on this computer, and when you are signed in they go with your account to any browser or computer you sign in on.

Colours on keys

Select some parts and press Shift+1 to Shift+0 to paint them one of your ten favourite colours, or Ctrl+Shift+1 to Ctrl+Shift+0 for the colours the model uses most, Ctrl+Shift+1 the most. One key paints them all, and one Ctrl+Z takes it back. With a part in hand, the key is that part's colour. [ and ] still step through the colours beside the one you have.

The favourites start as the colours LEGO® sets use most: Black, Light Bluish Grey, White and so on. To change one, open the keys sheet (F1), find Colours, click a favourite's swatch and pick a colour. Your favourites are kept with your keys, so they follow your account. With Studio's keys they have no key at first, as in Studio; set any of them in the sheet.

To select more like what is selected: Alt+C the same colour, Alt+P the same part, Alt+J everything joined to it, Alt+I everything else. With Studio's keys, Shift+V goes through the same colour, the same part, both and everything joined, a press each.

Docked panels

Fold a panel by its header, and drag the bar between two to share the room. A click on a column's strip folds it away to the edge, and another brings it back. The model keeps at least 60% of the window's width, so in most windows one column shows beside it at a time, and opening one folds the other; a window about twice as wide as it is tall shows both. View turns each panel on or off, and Tab shows or hides them all. Brickworks remembers the layout, the folds and the snap you chose, and starts with them next time.

The model tree

At the top of the right-hand column, the model tree lists the model's sub-assemblies and sections by name, inside one another. Click one to select it, double-click to edit inside it. View › Model tree shows or hides it.

Properties

Select a part and the right-hand column says what it is, under the model tree: its part, its colour, where it stands and what it is joined to, every field in sight. Type its X, Y and Z to the hundredth of an LDraw unit, or, when it hangs from a joint, its Hinge angle in degrees. With nothing selected, it holds the floor's settings.

In a window where one column shows at a time, the parts bin has the selected part's name, colour, X, Y, Z, Turn, Tilt and Roll under it as well, so you can put a part down, type it to its place and take the next without folding the bin. A colour clicked under them paints it. More opens the rest down the right.

Tooltips and busy work

Rest on a control for its tooltip; a tooltip never blocks a click on what is under it. When a command takes more than a moment, a bar at the foot says what Brickworks is working on, with Cancel.

Settings

Tools › Settings… (,) opens Settings, what you can change:

• Navigate like Studio, Blender or Mecabricks, and which way the wheel zooms (The view).
• New models start on: the floor a new model gets.
• Interface size (85 to 150%) and Reduce motion (Accessibility).
• Language: English, Deutsch, Français or Español, for the menus, tooltips, panels, the keys sheet and the tour. Parts and colours keep their names, as Studio keeps them. Find a command takes a command's words in either language. A link can choose one: brickworks.diy/app?lang=de.
• Assistant (AI): Build by hand only, or Show the assistant (Connect Claude), and AI…: who designs, Claude or another AI on your own key (Another AI on your own key).
• The app's version, at the foot.

Help › Keys and controls (F1) opens the keys sheet on its own: every key and gesture, drawn as keys and pictures of the mouse, in two columns as tall as the window, with the keys the menus show beside them (Keyboard shortcuts). Type into its box and only the rows whose keys or words say it stay: hinge, undo, Ctrl. The letters go to the box, not to the tools they are keys of; Escape closes it.