The Tree view appears in the upper section of the Model panel (if the Combo view is active) or as a stand-alone panel. It shows all user defined objects that are part of a FreeCAD document. The Tree view is a representation of the document's structure, and indicates what information is saved to disk.
These objects don't necessarily have to be geometrical shapes visible in the 3D view, but can also be supporting data objects created with any of the workbenches.
The Tree view showing various elements in the document.
By default, whenever a new object is created, it is added to the end of the list in the Tree view. The Tree view allows managing the objects to keep them organized; it permits creating groups, moving objects inside groups, moving groups inside other groups, relabeling objects, copying objects, deleting objects, and using options from its context menu.
Many operations create objects that are dependent on a previously existing object. In this case, the Tree view shows this relationship by absorbing the older object inside the new object. Expanding and collapsing the objects in the Tree view shows the parametric history of that object. Objects that are deeper inside others are older, while objects that are outside are newer, and are derived from the older objects. By modifying the interior objects, the parametric operations propagate all the way to the top, generating a new result.
The topmost object is created by doing parametric operations on objects which themselves were created by previous operations.
Fully expanding the tree reveals the original elements that were used to create the partial solids.
The Tree view always displays a column with the icons and labels of objects. Two additional columns can optionally be displayed as well. To enable these columns right-click the Tree view and in the context menu select Tree settings and then Show description (introduced in version 0.21) and/or Show internal name (introduced in version 1.0). Column headings are added if more than one column is displayed. Note that the internal names of objects cannot be changed.
Select an object in the first column and press F2 (on Windows and Linux), or Enter (on macOS), to edit its DadosLabel property. This property can also be edited via the context menu option Rename or in the Property editor.
An object can optionally have a description. This information is stored in its DadosLabel2 property. If the description column is displayed you can edit this property by selecting an object in that column and pressing F2 (on Windows and Linux), or Enter (on macOS). The property can also be changed in the Property editor.
The options in the context menu of the Tree view depend on the selected object(s) and the currently active workbench. To display this menu right-click the background of the list, right-click an object in the list, or select multiple objects in the list and then right-click one of them.
The usual keyboard modifiers can be used in the Tree view. The modifiers can be combined as well.
The following keyboard shortcuts are available when the focus is on the Tree view:
One or more overlay icons can be displayed on top of an object's default icon in the Tree view. The available overlay icons and their meaning are listed below.
This indicates that the object has to be recomputed, due to changes made to the model or because the user marked the object in the Tree view context menu to be recomputed. In most cases recomputes are triggered automatically, but sometimes they are delayed for performance reasons.
This indicates that the object has an error that needs to be fixed. After recomputing the whole document a tooltip describing the error is shown when you hover the mouse over the object in the Tree view. Note: All other objects depending on an object in such an error state will not be properly recomputed, thus they may still show some old state.
This is typically shown for sketches, PartDesign primitives, such as box, cylinder, etc. and Datum geometry. It indicates that the object is not attached to anything. It has no Attachment Offset and gets its position and alignment solely from its Placement property.
There is a Basic Attachment Tutorial explaining how to handle such objects.
This is only used for sketches and indicates that the sketch is not fully constrained. If the sketch is in edit mode the number of remaining degrees of freedom is shown in the solver messages.
This indicates the so called Tip of a PartDesign Body. It is usually the last feature in a body and represents the whole body to the world outside of the body, e.g. when the body is exported or used in Part boolean operations. The tip can be changed by the user.
This indicates a suppressed PartDesign feature.
This indicates a linked object.
This indicates a linked object loaded from an external document.
This indicates that the object will be hidden in the Tree view if the Show items hidden in Tree view context menu option is unchecked.
This indicates a frozen object that is not recomputed when its parents change.
See Combo view.