Docs/Design

Designing by hand

Manual mode, the map tools, rule markers, pinned edits, undo and work orders.

2 min read

You can steer an automatic design or build a network entirely by hand. Every manual edit is still an engine tool call: it needs a reason, it is a new version, and it reports the rule violations it leaves behind.

#Auto and Manual

The map has an Auto / Manual switch (E). Manual brings out the tool bar, frames the map in the accent colour and shows in the status bar. While a crew member or the automatic design works, manual editing is locked: the tools are greyed, a banner offers "Stop the crew", and every edit is refused. You and the crew never change the map at the same time.

#Tools

• Shift-click and Shift-drag for box selection; Del deletes one element or many.
• Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y undo and redo.
• A Table tab per layer with inline edit.
• An edit strip in the Splices tab: re-patch, splice or patch with the rulebook's loss, tray, note, remove.
• Keep-out and no-dig zones can be drawn in the app. Equipment stays out of keep-out zones, and trenches out of both.

Splitting a cable splices its fibres straight through at the new chamber. Joining refuses a joint that would cross fibres.

#Steering an automatic design

Move a cabinet, take a building out, or forbid digging on a street (move_site, exclude_building, forbid_street). The routes are planned again and the Checker validates again.

#Rule markers

Rule issues show as rings on the map with their messages, from a rule check of the design as it stands. Edits do not wait for the Checker; each one reports its own violations.

#Pinned edits

Each edit pins what it places. Sites placed by the engineer are fixed when the solvers run again: they keep their ids, stay open, and are named in a decision with source="user". A hand-placed POP is kept too. So a later re-solve does not throw away your moves.

#Building a network by hand

1. "Lay out by hand" prepares the area: data in, checked, and the street twin, with nothing placed.
2. Place a POP, cabinets and FATs.
3. Give homes and FATs to them with box selection and Reassign.
4. Draw the feeder and distribution cables.
5. Edit → Complete the network routes, sizes and numbers it along exactly those cables.
6. Run the free checks.

#Versions and work orders

Every change is a version you can diff. Open a work order for your changes; posting it to the network of record opens an approval card, and a post is refused while the layout still breaks the rules. Rewinding the design to an earlier version is also a risky step that needs approval, and it is itself a new version.