Appearance
The interface
Top bar
From left to right:
- View tabs — Rack Elevation, Port Mapping, Power Budget, Fabric Topology, Materials and BOM. The app opens on Rack Elevation.
- Source badge — shown when the document came from a file or from S3: File: name, or the S3 object. Its tooltip says whether Save writes back to it. A badge marked view only means the document was opened from a read-only share link. Click an S3 badge to open the S3 dialog.
- Search (Ctrl+F) — finds devices, NICs, ports and cables by label. Enter jumps to the first result; clicking a result centres the view on it and selects it. Esc clears the box.
- Action buttons:
| Button | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Show/Hide Topology panel | Shows or hides the right side panel (Rack Elevation, Port Mapping, Power Budget) | |
| Undo / Redo | Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z | Undo history covers changes since the last save |
| Open file | Ctrl+O | Opens a .dsl file from your computer |
| S3 — open or save | Opens the S3 dialog | |
| Import DSL | Ctrl+I | Opens the DSL editor |
| Export DSL | Ctrl+E | Downloads the design as topology.dsl |
| Export PNG | Ctrl+Shift+E | Saves the whole current diagram as a PNG (diagram views only) |
| Save | Ctrl+S | Saves to where the document came from. An amber dot means unsaved changes |
On a narrow window the buttons move into an Actions (☰) menu.
On a Mac, use ⌘ wherever these pages say Ctrl.
Left toolbar
Port Mapping and Power Budget have a toolbar on the left, in four groups:
| Group | Buttons |
|---|---|
| Navigation | Select (V), Fit All, Straight / Orthogonal Cables (how cables are drawn), Hide/Show cables, Show/Hide power cables (Power Budget), Auto Layout (Ctrl+L) |
| Devices | Server (1), Switch (3), PDU (4), NIC (5) — Power inlet in Power Budget, Cable (C) — Power cord in Power Budget |
| Edit | Undo, Redo |
| File | Save, Export DSL, Open File, Import DSL |
Rack Elevation has a shorter toolbar: Fit All, Add Rack, Server, Switch, PDU, Undo and Redo.
Catalog bar
While a Server, Switch, PDU, NIC or Cable tool is active, a bar at the bottom of the canvas lists the templates of that kind as chips (model · manufacturer · NU). Click a chip to place or draw from that template; click it again to go back to no template. Hover a chip and click ✎ to edit it, or click + to add a template in a quick dialog. The full editor is the Materials tab.
Side panel
The panel on the right shows the properties of whatever is selected — a rack, a device, a NIC, a port or a cable — and is where most editing happens; see Editing items. With nothing selected it shows how many servers, switches and PDUs the topology has.
At the top of the panel, Filter by label shows one button per label used in the design; see Filtering by label.
Fold the panel with ▼ in its header and click the title pill to open it again, or hide it with the top-bar button.
Other canvas controls
- Minimap (bottom right) — click or drag in it to pan.
- Back | Front (top centre, Port Mapping and Power Budget) — which face of the chassis is drawn. Only NICs on that face, and cables with both ends on it, are shown.
- Legend (bottom left) — what the port colours mean in Port Mapping; PDU load in Power Budget.
Moving around the canvas
| Action | Mouse / trackpad |
|---|---|
| Pan | Scroll, two-finger scroll, middle-drag, Space+drag, or drag on empty canvas |
| Zoom | Ctrl+scroll, or pinch |
| Select a box of devices | Shift+drag on empty canvas |
| Add to / remove from selection | Shift+click |
| Fit everything on screen | Fit All |
See Keyboard shortcuts for the full list.