Tags

Tags organise your model into sets that you can show, hide, colour and draw with dashed lines: walls, furniture, paving, planting, the existing garden, the new design. Faces and edges you draw are usually Untagged; put groups and components on tags. In older programs tags were called layers.

The Tags panel

Open it with Window ▸ Default Tray ▸ Tags. The buttons at the top:

• + adds a tag. With a folder selected, the new tag goes into that folder.
• The folder button adds a tag folder. With a tag selected, the tag moves into the new folder.
• − deletes the selected tag or folder. Entities on a deleted tag become Untagged. Deleting a folder keeps its tags and moves them to the folder above.
• The Tag tool button starts the Tag tool.
• Color by tag draws every face and edge in its tag's colour. Dashes draws edges with their tag's line pattern. Both are style settings.

Each tag row shows, from left to right:

Right-click a tag or folder for Make Active, Move to Folder, Rename and Delete.

Tag folders

Folders group tags, and they can hold other folders, up to 8 levels deep. Click the arrow in front of a folder to collapse or expand it. Its eye hides or shows every tag inside it. A tag inside a hidden folder stays hidden until you show the folder again, even if the tag's own eye is open.

To move a tag or folder, drag it onto a folder, or onto a tag in the folder you want. You can also right-click it and choose Move to Folder. Terrafold doesn't let you move a folder into itself or into one of its own subfolders.

The garden tools put their tags (Plants and Plant symbols) in a folder called Garden.

Color by tag

With View ▸ Color by Tag (or Color by tag in the Tags panel), faces and edges take their tag's colour instead of their materials and textures. This is useful for checking which tag things are on, and for clear garden plans: give paving, lawn, planting and buildings their own colours.

An entity inside a group or component takes its own tag's colour. If it is Untagged, it takes the colour of the nearest tagged group or component it is in. Showing and hiding works more strictly: an entity is drawn only when its own tag and the tags of every group or component around it are visible.

Color by tag is part of the style, so styles and scenes save it. It shows in the viewport, in exported images and in terrafold-cli renders. The path-traced preview and the Render window ignore it and always show materials.

Dashed lines

Give a tag a line pattern in the Tags panel, and its edges are drawn dashed, dotted, dash dot or with long dashes. The pattern has the same size on screen at any zoom. View ▸ Edge Style ▸ Tag Dashes turns the patterns on or off. It is on by default and is part of the style. Patterns show in the viewport and in exported images.

The active tag

The active tag is marked with a filled round button. Every face, edge, group or component that you draw goes on the active tag. Copies, imported tags and garden elements keep the tag they already have. Make Untagged active again to draw untagged geometry.

The Tag tool

Tools ▸ Tag, or Tag on the Home ribbon tab, works like the Paint Bucket, but for tags. Choose the tag in the Tag list on the tool options tab. Until you choose one, the tool uses the active tag. Then click entities:

While you hold Ctrl or Shift, Terrafold outlines what a click would change. Each click is one undo step.

The Tag row in Entity Info sets the tag of the selection directly.

Scenes

A scene saves which tags and which tag folders are visible, together with the style (Color by tag and dashes). See Scenes.

Files

.tfo files store tag colours, line patterns, folders, folder visibility and the active tag. Older .tfo files open with every tag solid and at the top level.

DXF export writes each tag as a layer with its nearest colour and a linetype (DASHED, DOT, DASHDOT, DASHEDX2). DXF import turns common linetype names back into line patterns. .skp import brings in tag names, colours and visibility. It doesn't bring in tag folders or dashes.