Preferences
Open Edit → Preferences… (Ctrl+,). Most of these are also in the View menu or the status bar; this window gathers them in one place. Preferences are remembered between sessions and carry over when you open another drawing.
What is saved with a drawing (its units and drafting style) is in File → Drawing settings… instead; see Drawing settings below.
The window has a page for each group, listed down its left side:
| Page | Holds |
|---|---|
| General | Appearance, Window, AI assistants and Memory. |
| Drawing aids | Grid and snapping, Dimensions and Closed areas. |
| Display | Display and Crosshair. |
| Mouse and trackpad | Scrolling. |
| Updates | Checking for and installing updates (desktop only). |
Appearance
The light or dark theme, or follow the system. (Also View → Appearance.)
Grid and snapping
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Show the grid | Also Ctrl+’ and the status bar. |
| Show the origin axes | The red and green lines through the origin. |
| Snap to the grid | Also Shift+G and the status bar. The arrow keys nudge the selection one grid step. |
| Add relations automatically while drawing | The same as the Auto relations switch in the status bar (Shift+Alt+R). |
| Round sizes when scaling with dimensions (Alt) | With a transform handle and Alt, the width and height step through round sizes. Off: any size. |
Dimensions
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Show temporary dimensions on the picked geometry | Revit-style temporary dimensions when one line, circle or arc is picked. See Temporary dimensions. |
Closed areas
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Find closed areas on each layer separately | An area is closed only by curves on one layer, so furniture or notes on other layers don’t cut it up. An outline must then be all on one layer. |
| Pick an area only where it is filled or hatched | On (the default): clicking inside an empty outline picks nothing, so a box selection can start there. Off: it picks the area, to measure it. |
Crosshair
While a drawing or editing tool is over the canvas, Drift draws its own crosshair in place of the system cursor (whose size and weight can’t be set).
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Size | How far each arm reaches from the centre, from 6 to 200 pt. |
| Full screen | Lines across the whole canvas, as in AutoCAD (Size is then unused). |
| Weight | The lines’ thickness, from 0.5 to 3 pt. |
Mouse and trackpad
Scrolling: Automatic (a mouse wheel zooms, two fingers on a trackpad pan, a pinch zooms), Zoom (scrolling always zooms) or Pan (scrolling always pans; Ctrl+scroll zooms). The middle or right mouse button drags the view either way.
Display
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Colour curves by constraint status | Blue, white or black, and red by how well defined. Off: each curve’s own or its layer’s colour. Also Shift+C. |
| Thin lines (every line one pixel wide) | For editing dense drawings. It never changes the drawing or its output. Also W. |
| Always show end points | Off: end points show only on hovered or picked curves. Also the End points switch in the status bar (Shift+Alt+V). |
| Show dimensions and notes | Also Alt+D. |
| Show relations | The relation symbols. Also Alt+R. |
| Curvature combs on picked curves | Combs on pen curves showing how they bend. |
Window
- Reset panel layout puts every panel back in the right dock.
- Show the start panel brings the start panel back over an empty, unsaved sketch.
AI assistants
Let AI assistants edit the open drawing turns on the live link (desktop only). Claude,
or another assistant connected through drift-mcp, then works on the drawing in this
window, and you see each change as it is made. It is off until you turn it on. See
Drawing with AI assistants.
Memory
Shows how much memory Drift is using. Drift warns at 3 GB and closes itself at 8 GB, so a fault can’t exhaust the computer; the sketch is restored next time.
Drawing settings
File → Drawing settings… (also in the command palette) holds what is saved in the open drawing rather than as a preference:
- Project: the Name, Number, Client, Address and Company every sheet’s title block shares, and the Title block fields (Mechanical or Architectural). See The project.
- Units: Metric or Imperial, the Format, Decimals or the fraction to Round to, and Angles decimals. See Units and length formats.
- Drafting: ISO 129 or ASME Y14.5, then scale, text height, Arrows, Arrow size, Ext. gap, Ext. past, text placement, Zeros, Dual units, Colour and the drawing’s Font. A picked dimension or annotation can override these for itself; see The drafting style.
Elsewhere
Some settings live outside this window:
- Gaps up to, the sketch checker’s tolerance, is in the Check sketch window and remembered.
- Angle snap (off, 1°, 5°, 15° or 45°) is in the status bar.
- View → Free directions, Variant ghosts, Hidden annotations (Alt+H) and View crops are in the View menu.