Task panel

From FreeCAD Documentation

Introduction

The task panel appears in the Tasks tab of the combo view, one of the important panels of the interface. It is a customizable space that is able to contain any type of graphical widget like collapsible sub-windows, tables, input fields, checkboxes, spinboxes, selector boxes, text boxes, buttons, labels, images, and other elements, depending on the currently active workbench, and the currently active tool.

The task panel showing various commands when the PartDesign Workbench is active, and a sketch is selected.

Working with the task panel

A task panel normally opens when a tool that requires user input is activated, either by pressing a toolbar button or double clicking on an object. If the tool doesn't need user input, it will produce its result or terminate, but won't display a task panel.

The user input may be anything such as text, 3D point coordinates, elements from a list, faces from a shape, or options to modify the way the tool operates.

Task panel that opens when a Sketch is being edited. Various types of information are presented like solver messages, grid options, constraints, and geometrical elements.

There are many commands that require selection of shapes or objects present in the document; for such cases the task panel will wait for the user to select the appropriate objects from the tree view or the 3D view. When a task panel is open, it is possible to switch to the Model tab to display the tree view to choose an object; once this is done, it is possible to switch back to the Tasks tab to proceed with the command. The task panel is usually closed by clicking an OK or a Close button, or pressing the Esc key on the keyboard to abort the command.

Task panel that opens when editing an Arch Component. The panel waits for the user to select objects that can be added or subtracted from the component.

Note: Please notice that switching from the Tasks tab to the Model tab does not terminate the active command; the task will still be running in the background. The user is responsible for properly terminating or aborting the active command before starting a different task; leaving a task running may produce errors when trying to launch other tools.

Notes

  • Users migrating from other CAD solutions that use the ESC key as part of their workflow may get different results in FreeCAD. When ESC is pressed in FreeCAD the task panel that has the focus will close. To disable this functionality, please see Fine tuning and Sketcher Preferences.