The vertical toolbox on the right contains the following buttons:
The Layers button
This is where you will find the list of actions you do when creating your design.
Clicking on the button opens a box displaying the default command Canvas.
Moving the cursor on it reveals three hidden buttons:
- edit (pencil)
- toggle visibility (eye)
- delete (trash can)
Clicking on the + sign at the top opens a menu of commands. Clicking on one of them piles it on the stack of layers for you to edit with the “Params” (see following point in this section).
Once on the layer stack, these commands can be renamed by right-clicking on them. This is useful, as you may end up using a command multiple times, and renaming them can help you identify them easily.
The commands will be arranged in the order that you apply them. They may also be edited, deleted or hidden, but each of these changes may affect commands applied later in the sequence. Their order may also be changed by clicking and dragging on them and moving them to the desired position, but that as well may affect some or all of the commands that follow, which will have to be revised. To do that, starting from the top, click on the pencil symbol and the “params” window will open for revision.
The Params button
Allows you to introduce the parameters for each individual command.
Many of these parameters need to be applied to a certain area in the canvas. That can be set in the box “Location”/ “Selection”, usually to be found on the upper part of each command parameter box. For this reason, some commands may have a pink and white warning appearance when we click on them, showing that the command is blocked until it is assigned a location/ selection.
To do so, click on the gray box and use one of the three options on display to select an area on the canvas. Click on the gray box again to set the selection and the action to that command will automatically show on the assigned part of the canvas.
The command box will change to a normal appearance and it will be possible to continue editing the options.
Editing the location or other settings of a command from the layer stack can affect posterior commands. In that case the appearance of the layers and the box changes to gray and white stripes until that is reviewed and corrected.
The kind of options to be set is different for each command and we will look into each one of them more closely later (link to the section).
The Checks button
Helps you validate your design by informing of possible issues. It indicates the kind of error and where to find it on the canvas.
It is essential to check your knit for possible errors and make sure they are solved before compiling.
The check window can be split into three sections for more clarity by marking the “Split” box:
- Issues
- Kicks
- Moves
Issues usually need correction for the file to be able to validate and compile properly, though some of them are just warnings that let us compile and save the file without a problem.
These are some common issues:
- Pick-up stitch is not stable: appears at the bottom row when there’s no cast on.
- Two-sided needle actions require half racking: (does not compile) need to set the rack to 0.5 wherever we are using all needles on both beds
- Knitting without carrier direction: (does not compile)it happens when inserting rows, they don’t have a yarn feeder assigned by default. We need to set it by selecting the whole row, right-click in it > Set> Set yarn
- Transfer row with carrier direction: (does not compile) it happens when we draw transfer symbols in a line that has a yarn assigned. We should always insert blank rows for transfers by selecting a single stitch where we want to add rows, right-click on it >Insert rows > enter number of rows and “below” or “above”
- Float distance is too large: can be due to different reasons:
- Short Rowing generates floats longer than 7 stitches: we need to bind off those stitches.
- The yarn carrier is parked on the opposite side of the knit: we need to add/ delete a row if possible to get the carrier direction right. It’s possible to change the direction of the carrier as well by selecting a row, right click on it > Set> Set direction> enter “rtl” (right-to-left) or “ltr” (left-to-right)
- Fair isle design with floats longer than 7 stitches.
- Transfer from an empty needle: appears when a transfer symbol is in a wrong place. We need to erase the transfer symbols.
- The initial direction of a carrier must be left-to-right: appears when the initial direction of a carrier is not starting on the left, considering all feeders should always start at the left side (home). If we, for some reason, need a feeder to start from the other side of the knit, the compiler will warn us with this message, but it will still allow us to compile, and it will generate a carriage move to fetch the feeder from the right. In that case we must make sure the feeder is placed there for the carriage to catch it.
- Loop has more than 2 parents, which is dangerous: it appears when there are more than two loops on a needle, due to transfers.
- Needle action in unsafe bed range: it appears when there are racked rows and the canvas is not centered on the needlebed.
Invalid needle specification: appears when there are transfers in a row with a half pitch rack.
Kicks and Moves are generated by the compiler according to the settings we have introduced for our design. Kicks are carriage movements to get a feeder out of the way so it doesn’t interfere with a neighboring knitting area or to make sure the stitch will be knit properly, for example in bind-offs. Moves are other types of carriage moves (to fetch a yarn carrier, for instance).
The Files button
Offers different options for importing and exporting files. When we click on the button the following menu opens:
- Download buck exports a .buck file. It does not save the stacks. Files may be opened with older versions of the software.
- Load buck imports a .buck file into the app. The action appears in the stack as “load image”. Allows editing by adding other commands to the stack.
- Download cstack exports a .json file that saves the stack of commands that go with your design.
- Load cstack imports a design with its stack of commands.
- Export kcode exports the .kc file that goes on the SD-card for knitting.
- Bug report sends an anonymous notification to report any bugs you may encounter in the app.
The Settings button
Click on the button to open the options menu:
- Display options are only for visualization, they only affect the size of the stitch that we see on the canvas, but they don’t have any effect on the knit.
- Compiler options allow you to set the carrier spacing and the stopping distance of the yarn feeders. By making the spacing or the distance bigger we can get yarn feeders to be parked further away from each other or from the knitting area, which can help prevent clump errors, needles collapsing with feeders and the generation of excessive carriage moves.
- Validation options set the value at which the compiler is going to warn us of a long float. Distances bigger than 7 stitches can be dangerous, so we recommend not exceeding this value.
- The WIFI Enable allows us to enter the IP of our WIFI SD card if we are using one.
Caching options refer to the behavior and performance requirements of the caching system. We recommend using the default settings.