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Placing parts

The docked part panel: search, categories, thumbnails, and three ways to get a part onto the canvas.

Opening the panel

Press the round + button on the canvas toolbar, or the A key. The panel docks down the left-hand side of the canvas on a desktop and comes up as a bottom sheet on a phone. It is the same panel either way.

The search field takes the focus as the panel opens, so you can open it and start typing without touching anything.

Finding a part

Search looks at four things: the part's plain name, its type string, its one-line description and a list of extra words filed against it. So pot, knob, dial and volume all find the potentiometer, and light, lamp and blink all find the LED. If nothing matches outright the search falls back to a looser match rather than showing you an empty panel.

Search also finds a wire you have named. Type a net label and the panel offers it above the tiles; picking it takes you to that wire on the canvas. See wiring for how to name a net.

The categories

Beside the search field is a rail of nine categories, and every part in the catalog is filed under exactly one of them:

  • Basics: LED, resistor, capacitor, clock
  • Boards: ESP32-C3, Arduino Uno, Raspberry Pi Pico, STM32F411
  • Inputs: pushbutton, slide switch, joystick, gamepad, arcade button, keypad, potentiometer, slide pot, tilt switch
  • Sensors: LDR, TMP36, HC-SR04
  • Outputs: buzzer, piezo, WS2812, RGB LED, servo, DC motor, relay
  • Displays: seven segment, SSD1306 OLED, ILI9341 TFT, MAX7219 matrix, LCD1602
  • Logic: ideal gate, inverter, 74HC00, 74HC04, 74HC08, 74HC32, 74HC74, 74HC86, 74HC595
  • Timers and analog: NE555, op-amp, inductor, signal generator, scope, transistor, diode
  • Power and wiring: VCC, GND, breadboard, half breadboard

There is more about what each family does in the part families.

The one tile that is not a part

At the top of the panel, under a Notes heading, is Sticky note: a square of paper you can write on and put anywhere on the board. It sits out of the categories because it is not a part: it has no pins, it is never wired, and the simulation never sees it. Searching for note, sticky or comment finds it. See sticky notes.

Getting it onto the canvas

Three ways, and they all end with the same part:

  • Click a tile. The part lands in the middle of the current view.
  • Drag a tile onto the canvas. A ghost follows the pointer and the part lands where you let go. A finger does this as well as a mouse does.
  • Use the keyboard. The arrows move through the tiles and Enter places the highlighted one. Escape closes the panel.

A Recent row at the top holds the last eight parts you placed, because most circuits use the same handful over and over.

Once it is down

Drag a part to move it. Press R to rotate the selected parts by 90 degrees, and Delete to remove them along with any wire that was attached. Drop a part onto a breadboard so its pins land in holes and the strips do the wiring for you.

A part somebody has locked does none of that: it will not move, rotate or delete, its cursor is a no-drop, and it wears a small padlock. You can still wire into its pins, add parts around it and run the circuit. That is what a locked starter circuit is for. See assignments and submissions.

Every tile's drawing is the real part, drawn from the same code the canvas uses, so what you pick is what you get.