Properties Panel

The Properties Panel is a single QDockWidget titled "Properties" (_build_panel — glyphviz_gl/main_window.py:306-900). It's not just a per-node field editor — it's the GUI's home for every setting that isn't the Viewer or the Node Table: scene-wide display toggles, global scale, stereo 3D, world/background settings, node creation defaults, selection tools, and the per-node inspector. All groups below appear in this one scrollable dock, top to bottom, in this order.

What the Properties Panel does

Everything in the Selected Node group (below) reflects and edits whichever node(s) are currently selected — in the Viewer, in the Node Table, or via Select By. Edits apply live: changing a spin box or combo box updates the node object immediately and repaints the Viewer (_on_insp_* handlers, e.g. _on_insp_pos_changed at main_window.py:1464, _on_insp_rotation_changed at main_window.py:1491).

Display

Field	Type	Default	Maps to
Show Axes	checkbox	checked	Viewport.show_axes
Show Grid	checkbox	checked	Viewport.show_grid
Grid Color	color button	dark gray (56, 56, 71)	The reference grid's line color. Unlike the checkboxes around it this is scene data, stored on the World node (ref_grid_color_r/g/b) and saved with the file. A World Grid node (type 6) draws its own lattice in its own node color and ignores this setting.
Show Hidden Nodes	checkbox	unchecked	Viewport.show_hidden
Show Tag Labels	checkbox	unchecked	Viewport.show_tags (also toggled by the T key)
Show Tag Labels of Selected	checkbox	unchecked	Viewport.show_tags_selected_only — when checked, only selected nodes' tags draw
Tag Color	color button	pastel yellow (255, 255, 200)	The color of every tag label. Scene data, stored on the World node (tag_color_r/g/b) and saved with the file. Disabled while the checkbox below is on.
Tag Text Matches Node Color	checkbox	unchecked	Draws each label in its own node's color instead of the single Tag Color, so a label reads as belonging to the glyph it names (tag_color_mode).
Tag Text Size	slider, 6–36 pt	11 pt	Point size of every tag label. Scene data too (tag_font_size on the World node). Labels are a fixed size on screen, so they do not shrink with distance — to declutter a dense scene, label fewer nodes rather than shrinking the type.
(texture status label + "…" button)	—	"No textures loaded"	Opens Textures → Set Texture Folder…
Audio track dropdown	combo	"All Audio Tracks"	Solos one video's audio track when multiple textured videos are loaded; disabled unless 2+ tracks exist

Source: main_window.py:321-376.

Global Scale

A slider, range 1–100 (displayed as 0.1–10.0), default value 10 (→ scale 1.0). Sets Viewport.base_scale, the global geometry-to-world-units conversion factor.

Below it, Enforce Minimum Glyph Size (0.2) (checkbox, unchecked by default) clamps every glyph's rendered size — scale_x/y/z × Global Scale — to at least 0.2 per axis, so a very small or zero-scale node stays visible and clickable. Off by default, glyphs render at exactly the size their scale fields ask for, and a sub-0.2 node can be too small to click. The clamp is per axis, so it changes the proportions of anything thinner than 0.2 on one axis only. World Grid (type 6) footprints are never clamped either way — a grid's rectangle has to stay aligned with where its children land. Mirrors the View → Enforce Minimum Glyph Size menu toggle; sets Viewport.enforce_scale_floor → Scene.scale_floor.

Stereo 3D (Cross-Eye)

Field	Type	Range / Default
Enable Stereo View	checkbox	unchecked
Eye Separation	slider	0.5%–15.0% of camera distance, default 3.0%

Mirrors the View → Stereo 3D (Cross-Eye) menu toggle. Source: main_window.py:391-415.

Camera

Optional ANTz-style smoothing ("inertia") on camera navigation. Off by default — the camera tracks the mouse exactly.

Field	Type	Range / Default
Smoothing	slider	0.00–0.60 s time constant, default 0 (off)
Off / ANTz	buttons	Presets: 0 s, and ANTz's own feel (0.33 s)
Applies to	combo	Left+Right drag only (default) or All camera navigation

The slider sets how far the camera lags where you drag: higher values glide more. Applies to chooses the scope — Left+Right drag only matches ANTz, where smoothing engaged on that combined orbit+zoom gesture; All camera navigation extends it to single-button orbit, pan and wheel zoom, which is the setting to use if you want the tremor-buffering effect. Camera Mode (free flight) is never smoothed.

Unlike ANTz, aim and position ease together, so the object you're orbiting stays framed for the whole glide. Camera jumps — reference-view presets, double-click focus, Reset Camera, scene load, Follow Selected Node — stay instant whatever the setting.

The setting is per session and resets to Off on restart. Sets Viewport.camera_smoothing_tau / camera_smoothing_scope; math in glyphviz_core/camera_smoothing.py. See Viewer Navigation for the full rationale.

Scene Settings

World-node-only settings — read from/written to the scene's type=0 World node (glyphviz_core/node.py's NODE_TYPE_WORLD), mirroring ANTz's global Background Color and Transparency Mode hotkeys.

Field	Type	Notes
Background	color swatch + "B/W" button	"B/W" toggles black/white (also the B key)
Render Mode	combo, 7 options	Normal / Additive / Subtractive / Dark (Multiply) / Off / Screen / Premultiplied Alpha — scene-wide blend mode (also cycled by the 8 key). Values are RENDER_MODE_* in node.py:29-50.
Enable Fog	checkbox	unchecked by default
Fog Start / End	two spin boxes, 0–1,000,000	Defaults 20.0 / 200.0; disabled until fog is enabled

Source: main_window.py:417-476.

Scene Info

Read-only labels: File (current filename), Nodes (total count), Visible (count after hide/draw-limit filtering) — plus one checkbox, Also Save Tag File (checked by default), which controls whether Save / Save As also writes a companion tag CSV. The K-key quick-save always writes both regardless of this checkbox. Source: main_window.py:478-497.

Create

Two buttons — New Node (N key) and New Child (Shift+N, requires exactly one node selected) — plus a New Object Defaults sub-form applied to every node created either way:

Field	Type	Default
Geometry	combo, all 27 GEO_* values	Octahedron (GEO_OCTA)
Topology	combo, all 18 TOPO_* values	Point (TOPO_POINT)
Scale (X, Y, Z)	3 spin boxes, 0.001–10,000	1.0 / 1.0 / 1.0
Lock X/Y/Z together	checkbox	checked
Color	color-picker button	RGBA (200, 200, 200, 255)
Placement Step	spin box, 0–10,000	5.0
Placement Z (root, child)	2 spin boxes, ±100,000	0.0 / 5.0

Placement Step is how far apart consecutively created objects sit. Each new object steps that far along translate_x; when the next step would reach a full lap (360), translate_x restarts at 0 and translate_y takes the step instead — so a long run of presses arrays into a grid rather than a runaway line, and under a circular topology (Sphere, Torus, Cylinder…) the object that completes a lap starts a new ring above the first instead of landing on top of it. This is ANTz's rule, whose own step was a fixed 15; type 15 here to reproduce its lattice exactly. translate_y keeps climbing rather than wrapping, so the grid grows taller indefinitely.

Placement Z is the translate_z a new object is born with — two numbers, because the axis means different things at the two levels:

• root (default 0.0) is height above the world plane. 0 sits on it.
• child (default 5.0) is offset from the parent, and how it offsets is the parent's topology's business: on Sphere, Torus or Cylinder it lifts the child radially off the surface; on a Cartesian parent it's a plain Z offset. 0 places a child exactly on the surface — which is why the default isn't 0, since under a topology-None parent that would put the first child inside it.

Both accept negative values (below the plane, or inside the surface).

The step and both heights apply to New Node, New Child, N, Shift+N, paste (Ctrl+V), and a mesh imported with nothing selected. Roots step on from the last root created (wherever it now sits, so dragging one carries the next along); children fill the next free slot under their parent, and links attached to that parent don't consume a slot. A step of 0 stacks every new object at the origin. Rotation is never part of these defaults. Source: main_window.py:499-572, glyphviz_core/placement.py.

Below the defaults sits Draw Mode (D key) — a checkable button that turns the mouse into a brush: left click stamps one object built from the New Object Defaults onto the World Grid where the cursor lands, click-drag stamps a trail of them. Five controls tune it:

Field	Type	Default
Stamp	combo + Load… button	Single Object (defaults above) — or any loaded Glyph Composer template, which stamps the whole hyperglyph per click. Load… opens a saved template .json; the Glyph Composer's Use as Draw Brush button sends one over directly
Draw Z	spin box, ±100,000	0.0 — each stamped object's translate_z (elevation above the grid plane)
Stamp Spacing	spin box, 0–500 px	30 px — cursor travel between stamps while dragging; 0 stamps on every mouse move
Heading Jitter	spin box, 0–180°	0° — each stamp spun by a random heading in ± this range (one draw per stamp, whole hyperglyph turns together)
Scale Jitter	spin box, 0–90 %	0 % — each stamp scaled by a random factor in ± this percent (one factor, all three axes, proportions preserved)

See Viewer Navigation → Draw Mode for the full gesture reference. Source: _on_draw_stamp, main_window.py.

Delete

One button, Delete Selected Objects (also Delete/Backspace), disabled until there's a selection. Deleting a node deletes its descendants too — children are never reparented onto the deleted node's parent, since there's no well-defined place to put them. Source: main_window.py:574-587.

Select By

Control	Notes
Select All / Deselect All buttons	Same as Ctrl+A's two states
Invert Selection	Selects every node that is not currently selected (Ctrl+I)
By:	combo — Branch Level, Geometry, or Topology
Value:	combo, repopulated from whichever distinct values exist in the loaded scene for the chosen criterion
Select All Matching	applies the filter
Add to current selection	checkbox, unchecked — when checked, Select All Matching and Select Matching Tags add to the selection instead of replacing it
Tag contains:	line edit — case-insensitive substring matched against each node's tag text (Enter runs the search)
Select Matching Tags	selects every node whose tag text contains that keyword
Show selection box	checkbox, checked — Viewport.show_selection_box, also Ctrl+B and View → Show Selection Box. Unchecking hides the yellow bounding box around selected nodes without deselecting them, so a screengrab can show a chosen state cleanly; Move/Rotate/Size and the selection keys keep working while it is off

Source: main_window.py:821-900, 1911-2006.

Selected Node

The per-node inspector — disabled (grayed out) until at least one node is selected; its title becomes "Selection (N nodes)" for a multi-selection. With 2+ nodes selected, Position and Rotation edits apply as a delta to every selected node (so they move together), while Scale, Geometry, Topology, Ratio, and Color apply the same absolute value to all of them (_refresh_inspector_multi — main_window.py:1378-1420).

Field (UI label)	Node attribute	Type / range	Notes
ID	id	read-only label
Type	type	read-only label
Parent	parent_id	read-only label
Pos (X,Y,Z)	translate_x/y/z	3 spin boxes, ±1,000,000, step 1.0
Translate Rate	translate_rate_x/y/z	3 spin boxes, ±1,000,000, step 0.01, 4 decimals	Per-cycle position delta (nominally 60 cycles/sec) — nonzero keeps the node moving
Rotate (X,Y,Z)	rotate_x/y/z	3 spin boxes, ±360, step 1.0, wraps
Rotate Rate	rotate_rate_x/y/z	3 spin boxes, ±3600, step 0.01, 4 decimals	Degrees added per cycle — spins the node continuously
Rotation Mode	rotation_mode	combo: "Euler XYZ" / "Heading/Tilt/Roll (ANTz)"	Two interpretations of rotate_x/y/z, dispatched in topology.py's local_rotation_matrix() (see topology.py:151-176); a missing CSV rotation_mode column loads as Heading/Tilt/Roll (preserves legacy file rendering), while a fresh Node() constructed in code defaults to Euler XYZ
Scale (X,Y,Z)	scale_x/y/z	3 spin boxes, 0.001–10,000, step 0.1
Scale Rate	scale_rate_x/y/z	3 spin boxes, ±10,000, step 0.001, 4 decimals	Rarely useful nonzero — unbounded growth/shrink
(Lock X/Y/Z together)	—	checkbox	Ties the three Scale spin boxes together
Geometry	geometry	combo, all 27 values	See Geometries
Topology	topo	combo, all 18 values	See Topologies
Topo Scale	topo_scale	spin box (6 decimals) + log slider, 0.0001–100, plus 1:1 and ANTz preset buttons	How far one unit of a child's translate reaches, for the axes this node's topology reads as a distance rather than an angle. Angular axes (lon/lat, orbital and tube angles) are never scaled, so it cannot distort a circular layout. 1.0 = one translate unit is one world unit (default); 1/180 ≈ 0.005556 = the ANTz convention, where a cube facet is 360 units across. Turn it down when children authored in degrees fly off after a switch to a linear topology — see Topologies
Facet	subspace	combo, 6 named faces (0: +X … 5: -Z)	Only meaningful when this node's parent uses Cube or Zcube topology
Ratio	ratio	spin box, 0.01–10.0, 3 decimals	Torus minor/major radius proportion; also doubles as Point sprite size and Plot line width (ratio × 20 px). On a Link it is the connector's thickness whatever geometry the link carries — pixels for Line, world-space half-width on both cross-axes for Prism or any stretched glyph (Geometries). Values above 1.0 only mean anything there; a torus ratio above 1.0 is degenerate
Texture ID	texture_id	spin box, 0–9999, integer	0 = none, 1 = first image in texture folder (alphanumeric), 2 = second, etc.
Color	color_r/g/b/a	color-picker button
Tag Text	text	line edit	Label shown near the node in 3D (toggle with T)
Link	link	line edit	URL or local file path, opened with U

Source: main_window.py:621-832 (field construction), 1309-1420 (populate/refresh logic).

Channels

A playback transport (Frame label, scrub slider, ▶/■ buttons, FPS spin box, Loop checkbox) that only becomes visible when the loaded scene has a Channels animation (ch-map/ch-tracks CSV pair) attached. Hidden by default (self._ch_grp.setVisible(False) — main_window.py:834-882).

Next step

See Node Panel for how nodes are selected and organized, or Geometries and Topologies for what the Geometry/Topology fields actually control.