Toolbar & button reference

This page is the complete map of Serial Studio's buttons: the main toolbar at the top of the window, the dashboard Start menu and taskbar, the Setup panel, the Project Editor toolbar, and the small toolbar that sits on top of each dashboard widget. Hover any button in the application to see the same tooltip text quoted here.

Buttons marked (Pro) require a Serial Studio Pro license (or an active trial). In the free GPL build they are hidden, not just disabled.

The main window at a glance

When Serial Studio is running, the window is built from a few fixed surfaces:

The center view starts on the Console and switches to the Dashboard automatically once the first valid frame is parsed. There is no manual Console/Dashboard toggle button; the view follows the data. See Operation Modes for how that transition is decided.

Main toolbar

The toolbar runs along the top of the window, left to right, grouped into sections that collapse into overflow menus when the window is narrow. The exact set of buttons depends on the build (Pro vs free). In operator runtime mode, the entire main toolbar is hidden, not just the buttons tagged "Authoring mode only" below.

Project section

Button	Icon	What it does	Notes
Project Editor		Opens the Project Editor to create or modify your JSON layout.	Authoring mode only.
Open Project		Opens an existing .ssproj / .json project and switches to Project File mode.	Authoring mode only.
Open CSV		Plays a recorded CSV file back as if it were live sensor data.	Disabled while a device is connected or while the CSV player is already open. See CSV Export & Playback.
Open MDF4 (Pro)		Plays an MDF4 file back as if it were live data.	Disabled while a device is connected or while the MDF4 player is already open. See MDF4.

Assistant / Extensions section

Button	Icon	What it does	Notes
Assistant (Pro)		Opens the AI Assistant to build and edit a project by chatting.	In the free build this button is Extensions instead, opening the extension manager.
Deploy (Pro)		Opens the shortcut generator to build a standalone operator app for the current project.
Historian (Pro)		Opens the Historian to browse, replay, and export recorded sessions.
Extensions (Pro)		Browse and install extensions.	In the free build, the section's first button is Extensions; in Pro it lives here alongside the AI tools.

Preferences and driver selection

Button	Icon	What it does	Notes
Preferences		Opens application settings and preferences.	Authoring mode only.
UART		Selects the Serial port (UART) driver.
Audio (Pro)		Selects the audio input driver.
USB (Pro)		Selects the raw USB driver.
Network		Selects the TCP / UDP network driver.
Modbus (Pro)		Selects the Modbus driver.
HID (Pro)		Selects the HID driver.
Bluetooth		Selects the Bluetooth LE driver.
CAN Bus (Pro)		Selects the CAN Bus driver.
Process (Pro)		Selects the Process I/O driver.

The driver buttons are a single-choice group: the active driver's label is shown in bold. They are disabled while a connection is live, while a file player is open, and for multi-source projects (where the source list is fixed by the project). See Data Sources.

Help and about

Button	Icon	What it does	Notes
About		Shows application info and license details.	Authoring mode only.
Examples		Browses example projects, downloaded from GitHub on first open (internet required).	Authoring mode only.
Help Center		Opens this documentation, the FAQ, and the wiki.	Available to operators too.
AI Wiki & Chat		Opens the DeepWiki documentation site in your browser, where you can ask questions about Serial Studio.	Authoring mode only.

Connection (right-pinned)

Button	Icon	What it does	Notes
Activate (Pro)		Opens license management to activate Serial Studio Pro.	Shown only when a Pro trial has expired and no license is active.
Connect / Disconnect		Opens or closes the connection to the configured device. This is a toggle: when connected the icon and label change to Disconnect.	Disabled until the connection is fully configured, and while a CSV / MDF4 / session player is open.

Setup panel

The Setup panel docks on the right edge of the window and is where you choose how data is parsed and which I/O driver to use. Drag its left edge to resize it and give the Dashboard more space.

Frame parsing

Three radio buttons pick the operation mode:

Device setup

• I/O Interface selector: chooses the active driver (the same set as the toolbar driver buttons). Each choice swaps in a driver-specific settings panel below it (port and baud rate for UART, host and port for Network, and so on). See Communication Protocols and the per-driver pages under Drivers.
• An API Server status indicator appears in the panel header when the TCP API is enabled, showing whether clients are connected.

Data export

Switches that arm recording for the session. Each writes to a separate file or store and can be toggled independently. CSV Spreadsheet, Historian Database, and MDF4 Recording are disabled in Console Only mode; the Console Log switch stays available:

For a project with two or more data sources, the panel replaces the single-driver controls with an Open Project Editor button, because the source list is defined in the project. See Data Sources.

Console Log file location. Each transcript is written under the workspace's Console/<subfolder>/ directory, where <subfolder> is the project title (ProjectFile mode), Quick Plot, or Console (Console Only mode). The file is named yyyy_MMM_dd HH_mm_ss.txt, with _deviceN appended for a multi-device Console Only session. ANSI escape sequences are stripped before writing, and the file is UTF-8 with a byte-order mark.

Dashboard Start menu

The Start menu opens from the leftmost taskbar button. It is the dashboard's main menu: workspaces, actions, plugins, tools, and the session controls.

Entry	Icon	What it does	Notes
Workspaces		Picks the active workspace, creates a new one, shows hidden ones, or edits and deletes user workspaces.	Submenu.
Actions		Lists the project's actions; picking one runs it.	Hidden when the project defines no actions.
Plugins		Lists installed plugins, plus Manage Plugins….	Hidden when no plugins are installed.
Auto Layout		Toggles automatic tiling of dashboard windows.	Toggle.
Full Screen		Toggles the main window between full-screen and windowed.	Toggle.
Add External Window		Opens a second dashboard window (for a multi-monitor layout).
Export		Submenu of recording toggles: CSV File, MDF4 File (Pro), Console Transcript (Pro), and Historian (Pro).	Mirrors the Setup panel's export switches.
Tools		Submenu: Console, Notifications (Pro), Clock, Stopwatch, Preferences, Sessions (Pro), File Transmission (Pro), AI Assistant (Pro).	Toggles the utility widgets and opens the tool windows.
Help Center		Opens this documentation.
Pause / Resume		Pauses or resumes data reception for the whole session. Pausing also closes any open CSV or MDF4 export file; resuming starts a new one.	Toggle.
Reset		Clears the dashboard's plotted history and rotates every active recorder (CSV, MDF4, console, database) so the next frame starts a fresh file or session.
Disconnect / Quit		Disconnects the device. In an operator deployment this entry is Quit and closes the app instead.

Dashboard taskbar

The taskbar runs along the bottom of the dashboard.

Control	Icon	What it does	Notes
Menu		Opens the Start menu.	Always the leftmost button.
Search		Filters open widgets and Start menu entries; results appear in a dropdown.	Shown when taskbar search is enabled in settings.
Pinned shortcuts	varies	A configurable strip of quick-toggles: Settings, Console, Notifications, Clock, Stopwatch, File Transmission, AI Assistant, Pause / Resume.	The set and order are user-configurable; Pro-only tools are hidden in the free build. Stateful shortcuts light up when active.
Window buttons	per-widget	One button per open dashboard widget; click to show, focus, or restore that widget. The center strip scrolls with the < / > arrows when it overflows.	Mirrors the widgets currently on the canvas.
Workspace switcher	(dropdown)	Selects the active workspace; the current one is bold.	Press Ctrl+K to open the Command Palette and jump to any workspace.
Layout		Opens the layout gallery: pick a tiling pattern for the active workspace, set its split ratio, or switch to manual placement.	Lights up while a pattern is applied. The Start menu entry and the keyboard shortcut still toggle auto layout directly.
Edit workspace		Renames or edits the active workspace.	Enabled only for user-created workspaces.
New workspace		Creates a new workspace.	Hidden in operator runtime mode.
MQTT status (Pro)		Shows the MQTT publisher connection state; click for a status popup with broker, mode, and message count.	Shown only when the MQTT publisher is enabled.

A note on workspaces

A workspace is a saved arrangement of dashboard windows. Each project includes a default workspace; you can add your own to keep different views of the same data (an overview screen, a diagnostics screen) and switch between them from the taskbar or the Start menu. User workspaces have IDs at or above 5000 and only those can be renamed or deleted.

Once you have more than a few workspaces, Ctrl+K opens the Command Palette: a searchable grid of every workspace, laid out like virtual desktops, alongside the dashboard's tools and open widgets. Start typing to filter the list, use the arrow keys to move the highlight, press Enter to switch, or Escape to close without changing anything. However you switch, the rebuilt dashboard slides in vertically in the direction of travel, rising up from below when you move to a later workspace and dropping down from above when you move back, so it stays easy to keep your bearings.

Project Editor toolbar

The Project Editor has its own toolbar for building the project tree: file actions on the left, then a series of "add" buttons grouped by what they create. The large buttons add the common item of each group; the small buttons next to them add the specific variants.

File

Button	Icon	What it does	Notes
New		Starts a new, empty project.
Open		Opens an existing project.
Save		Saves the project to disk.	Enabled only when there are unsaved changes and saving is allowed.
Save As		Saves under a new name.

Import and restore

Button	Icon	What it does	Notes
Protobuf		Generates a project from a Protocol Buffers .proto schema.	See Auto-Generating Projects.
Restore		Restores a recent automatic snapshot of the project.	See Backups & Recovery.
Lock		Sets a password and locks the editor.	See Project Lock.
Add Device (Pro)		Adds another data source to the project.

Add output controls

Button	Icon	Adds
Output		An output control panel.
Action		An action.
Slider		An output slider.
Toggle		An output toggle.
Knob		An output knob.
Text Field		An output text field.
Button		An output button.

Add datasets

Button	Icon	Adds a dataset shown as
Dataset		A plain dataset (no widget).
Plot		A time-series plot.
FFT Plot		An FFT spectrum.
Gauge		A gauge.
Level Indicator		A bar.
Compass		A compass.
LED Indicator		An LED.

Add groups

Button	Icon	Adds a group shown as
Group		A generic dataset group.
Image		An Image View (Pro).
Web View		A web viewer.
Canvas		A Canvas widget (Pro).
Table		A Data Grid.
Multi-Plot		A Multi-Plot.
3D Plot		A 3D Plot (Pro).
Accelerometer		An accelerometer group.
Gyroscope		A gyroscope group.
GPS Map		A GPS map.

Assistant and help

Button	Icon	What it does	Notes
Assistant (Pro)		Opens the AI Assistant.
Help Center		Opens the Project Editor documentation.

The full set of dataset and widget configuration fields is described in the Widget Reference and Project Editor pages.

Dashboard widget toolbars

Most visualization widgets carry a small toolbar of icon buttons along their top edge. The toolbar only appears when the widget is large enough to fit it; shrink a widget and the toolbar hides to leave room for the data. All toggle settings are saved per-widget in the project file, so each tile remembers its own state.

A few conventions are shared across widgets:

• Pause / Resume stops the widget from ingesting new samples into its own buffer; samples that arrive while paused are dropped, not shown after Resume. Other widgets and the data source are unaffected. The icon swaps between a pause and a play glyph.
• Show Crosshair overlays a tracking crosshair that follows the cursor.
• Reset View returns pan and zoom to the default; it is disabled until you have zoomed or panned.
• Axis Range Settings (gear icon) opens a dialog to pin fixed minimum and maximum axis values.

Plot

Button	Icon	What it does
Interpolation		Cycles line smoothing: none (raw points), linear, stepped (ZOH), or stem.
Show Area Under Plot		Fills the region beneath the curve. Available only with line interpolation.
Show X Axis Label		Shows or hides the X-axis label.
Show Y Axis Label		Shows or hides the Y-axis label.
Show Crosshair		Tracking crosshair that follows the cursor.
Pause / Resume		Stops this widget from ingesting new samples into its own buffer; samples that arrive while paused are dropped, not shown after Resume. Other widgets and the data source are unaffected.
Sweep / Trigger Mode (Pro)		Turns oscilloscope-style Sweep / Trigger mode on or off. Time-axis plots only.
Trigger Settings (Pro)		Opens the Trigger Settings dialog (mode, level, slope, holdoff, timebase). Enabled only while Sweep is on.
Reset View		Returns pan and zoom to the default; disabled until you have zoomed or panned.
Axis Range Settings		Pins fixed minimum and maximum axis values.

Multi-Plot

The Multi-Plot toolbar matches the Plot toolbar, minus Show Area Under Plot (which does not apply to overlaid curves). A per-curve legend with show / hide switches sits beside the chart.

Button	Icon	What it does
Interpolation		Cycles line smoothing: none (raw points), linear, stepped (ZOH), or stem.
Show X Axis Label		Shows or hides the X-axis label.
Show Y Axis Label		Shows or hides the Y-axis label.
Show Crosshair		Tracking crosshair that follows the cursor.
Pause / Resume		Stops this widget from ingesting new samples into its own buffer; samples that arrive while paused are dropped, not shown after Resume. Other widgets and the data source are unaffected.
Sweep / Trigger Mode (Pro)		Turns oscilloscope-style Sweep / Trigger mode on or off. The Source setting picks which curve the trigger watches. Time-axis plots only.
Trigger Settings (Pro)		Opens the Trigger Settings dialog (mode, source, level, slope, holdoff, timebase). Enabled only while Sweep is on.
Reset View		Returns pan and zoom to the default; disabled until you have zoomed or panned.
Axis Range Settings		Pins fixed minimum and maximum axis values.

These buttons and Sweep / Trigger mode are documented in full on the Plots page.

FFT Plot

Button	Icon	What it does
Interpolation		Cycles the spectrum line between raw points and interpolated curves.
Show Area Under Plot		Fills the area beneath the spectrum. Available only with line interpolation.
Show X Axis Label		Shows or hides the frequency-axis label.
Show Y Axis Label		Shows or hides the magnitude-axis label.
Show Crosshair		Tracking crosshair.
Pause / Resume		Stops this widget from ingesting new samples into its own buffer; samples that arrive while paused are dropped, not shown after Resume.
Reset View		Resets pan and zoom.
Axis Range Settings		Fixed axis ranges.

See the FFT Plot entry for window size and sampling-rate configuration.

Waterfall (Pro)

Control	Icon	What it does
Color map	(dropdown)	Picks the color map (Viridis, Inferno, Magma, Plasma, Turbo, Jet, Hot, Grayscale).
Dynamic range	(dual slider)	Sets the dB floor and ceiling mapped onto the color map (-120 to +20 dB).
Show Colorbar		Shows or hides the color scale.
Show Axes & Grid		Shows or hides the axes and grid.
Show Crosshair		Frequency / time readout under the cursor.
Pause / Resume		Stops this widget from ingesting new samples into its own buffer; samples that arrive while paused are dropped, not shown after Resume.

See the Waterfall entry for details.

GPS Map

Button	Icon	What it does
Auto Center		Keeps the map centered on the latest position.
Plot Trajectory		Draws the path traveled.
Zoom In / Zoom Out		Changes the map zoom level.
Show Weather		Overlays a live weather layer.
NASA Weather Overlay		Overlays the NASA GIBS imagery layer.
Base Map		A dropdown that selects the map style (street, satellite, terrain, and so on). The first style is free; the additional styles require Pro.

3D Plot (Pro)

Button	Icon	What it does
Interpolate		Smooths the trajectory between points.
Orbit Navigation		Drag rotates the camera around the data.
Pan Navigation		Drag slides the camera (mutually exclusive with Orbit).
Orthogonal View		Snaps the camera to an isometric angle.
Top / Left / Front View		Snaps the camera to a standard orthographic view.
Auto Center		Keeps the cloud centered as new points arrive.
Anaglyph 3D		Renders a red / cyan stereo image for 3D glasses.
Invert Eye Positions		Swaps the left / right eyes (enabled only with Anaglyph on).
Eye Separation	(slider)	Sets the stereo separation (enabled only with Anaglyph on).

Image View (Pro)

Button	Icon	What it does
Export Images		Saves each incoming frame to disk.
Open Export Folder		Reveals the export folder in the file manager.
Zoom In / Zoom Out		Magnifies the image (1x to 5x), with drag to pan.
Show Crosshair		Cursor crosshair with pixel coordinates.
Filter		A dropdown of display filters (Normal, Grayscale, High Contrast, Vivid, Night Vision, Infrared, Deep Blue, Amber).

Data Grid

Button	Icon	What it does
Pause / Resume		Stops the table from refreshing with new values; Resume pulls a fresh snapshot immediately, skipping what arrived while paused.

Accelerometer

Button	Icon	What it does
Settings		Opens the configuration dialog (max-G range).

Widgets without a toolbar

These widgets have no toolbar; their interaction is direct:

• Bar, Gauge, Meter, Compass, Clock are two-page swipe views. Swipe horizontally, or click the page-indicator dots at the bottom, to flip between the analog face and the large digital readout. The active page is saved per widget.
• Gyroscope and LED Panel are display-only.
• Stopwatch has its own Start / Stop, Lap, and Reset buttons and a lap table; see Widget Reference.
• Output controls (button, slider, toggle, knob, text field) are interactive inputs that send values to the device; see Output Controls.
• Canvas (Pro) renders entirely from its user script and has no toolbar; see Canvas Widget.

Console toolbar

The console terminal has a ribbon toolbar above the output and a send row below it.

Ribbon toolbar, left to right:

• Utilities group: Clear (wipes the console output), Find (opens the in-console search bar), Collapse (collapses repeated lines into a single entry), Annotations (opens the byte-annotation panel), and Pause / Resume (freezes the console display; data keeps logging in the background).
• Format group: Text and Hex buttons switch the display mode.
• Settings button opens a popup with Show Timestamp, Echo, Emulate VT-100, and ANSI Colors checkboxes (ANSI Colors is enabled only while VT-100 emulation is on) and a Scrollback Lines field.

With Emulate VT-100 on, keystrokes typed into the console view are translated to VT-100 escape sequences and sent to the connected device, turning the console into an interactive terminal.

Send row: an Attach button for file transmission, an input box that sends on Enter or the Send button, a HEX toggle to send hexadecimal, and dropdowns for line ending and checksum. On a multi-device project a device selector picks the target.

Right-click the terminal for Copy, Select all, and Clear.

Notification log

The notification log has a Filter by channel field, an unread-count badge, and a Clear all notifications button.

See also

• Getting Started: the main-window layout and a first connection walkthrough.
• Command Palette: reach any of these buttons' commands, plus workspaces and widgets, from one Ctrl+K search box.
• Operation Modes: how the Console / Dashboard view and parsing are chosen.
• Widget Reference: every widget type and its configuration fields.
• Plots: the plot toolbar and Sweep / Trigger mode in detail.
• Project Editor: building and configuring a project.
• Output Controls: the interactive control widgets.