Top Bar & Main Menu

Beginner

The top bar runs across the very top of the Buildopia screen and is always visible, regardless of what tool you have active in the sidebar. It holds your most-used utility controls: undo and redo, camera presets, an additional viewport button, screenshot and clear buttons, My Builds, the Community and Discord shortcuts, and the main menu. This guide covers each one.

Undo & Redo

The two arrow buttons on the left side of the top bar step backwards and forwards through your build history. Every placement, paint stroke, erase, move, rotate, and paste is tracked individually, so you can unwind exactly as far as you need to. There's no step limit within a session.

These work identically to the keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+Z to undo and Ctrl+Y (or Ctrl+Shift+Z) to redo on Windows and Linux; Cmd+Z and Cmd+Y on Mac. The shortcuts work from anywhere in the app, so you rarely need to reach for the buttons unless you're on mobile.

History Modal

The clock icon button in the top bar opens the History modal, which shows your full undo/redo stack at a glance. Past actions appear below a divider line; undone (redoable) actions appear above it, dimmed. You can also open it by long-pressing either the Undo or Redo button, or by right-clicking either of them on desktop.

The History modal is interactive: clicking any entry in the stack jumps directly to that state. For multi-step jumps a confirmation row appears before anything changes, so you always have a chance to reconsider. Hovering over an entry shows a badge with the number of steps the jump will take. Use the modal to navigate your history at a glance instead of pressing Undo or Redo one step at a time.

Tip: Undo history is session-based. If you reload the page, the history clears — but your build itself is preserved by autosave and will be offered for restoration when you reopen Buildopia.

Camera Presets

Four camera preset buttons let you snap the viewport to a standard angle without manually orbiting:

Button	What it does
Reset	Returns to the default perspective view — a comfortable angled position that shows most of the grid without distorting proportions. Good as a starting point when you've been orbiting freely and lost your bearings.
Top	Snaps to a true top-down orthographic view. Useful for laying out floors, paths, and anything where you need to see the X/Z grid from directly above.
Side	Snaps to an orthographic view from the side (the Z face). Good for checking storey heights, wall thickness, and vertical alignment.
Front	Snaps to an orthographic view from the front (the X face). Helpful for symmetry checks and for placing roofing or windows in a front-facing facade.

The preset buttons in the top bar apply only to the main viewport. Each additional viewport has its own independent preset buttons in its footer row — so you can, for example, keep the main viewport in Reset perspective while locking one additional viewport to Top and another to Front for multi-angle reference as you build.

Additional Viewports

The split-screen button opens a new floating 3D camera window each time you click it. You can have up to five additional viewports open simultaneously — each with its own independent camera, preset controls, position, and size. Closing any one of them with its ✕ button frees up a slot for a new one. The cameras are all completely independent of one another — orbiting one has no effect on any other. This is covered in depth in the Viewport Camera guide.

Presentation Mode

The Presentation Mode button in the top bar hides every piece of UI from the screen — sidebar, top bar, layer controls, zoom slider, gizmos, and all overlays — leaving only the 3D viewport. Once active, the camera slowly auto-rotates around the centre of your build, giving it a continuous showcase spin.

Before the camera starts rotating, a pre-launch dialog gives you the option to record a GIF. Enable recording to capture up to 6 seconds of the auto-rotate at 12 fps. When you exit Presentation Mode — by clicking or tapping the viewport — you'll see a Save GIF button to download the clip, or Discard to skip it. If you don't enable recording, exiting works exactly as before.

Tip: Presentation Mode pairs well with the Time of Day setting in Settings → Advanced. Set a warm Evening or Night lighting preset before activating it for a more atmospheric display.

PNG Screenshot

The PNG button captures exactly what the main viewport currently shows — your build from your current camera angle, at your current zoom level — and downloads it as a PNG image file. It does not include the UI, sidebar, or top bar; it's a clean render of the grid itself.

This is the fastest way to share a build visually without going through the Community Builds system. It's also useful for keeping a quick visual record as you work — since screenshots capture the current rendered frame, you can toggle Flat Material or Wireframe on before capturing if you want a different kind of reference image.

Tip: Use the camera presets to line up a clean angle before taking a screenshot. The Front preset gives a particularly clean elevation-style view, and the Top preset works well for floor plan shots.

Clear

The Clear button removes every block from the build entirely, leaving you with an empty grid at your current dimensions. A confirmation prompt appears before anything is deleted — Clear is one of the few actions in Buildopia that cannot be undone, so the prompt is there to give you a moment to reconsider.

Warning: Clear is permanent. Export your build or save it to My Builds before using it if there's any chance you might want to restore it later.

Tools Toggle

The eye icon button hides the viewport's overlaid control buttons — the layer indicator, zoom slider, camera mode toggle, wireframe/material controls, block counter, and materials used panel — without removing them. Toggle it off again to bring everything back. This is particularly useful when taking screenshots or when you simply want an unobstructed view of the build you're working on.

My Builds

The My Builds button opens Buildopia's on-device save panel. From here you can save your current build as a named slot, load any previous save, and browse the last 30 autosaves to jump back to an earlier state of your work. Saves are stored locally in your browser and are never uploaded anywhere. A full walkthrough is in the My Builds guide.

Community & Discord

The Community button opens the Community Builds panel, where you can browse builds shared by other players, like and load them, and share your own. A full walkthrough is in the Community Builds guide.

The Discord button opens an invite link to the Buildopia Discord server in a new tab. The Discord is the fastest way to reach the development team, report bugs with screenshots, see work-in-progress previews, and talk to other builders.

Main Menu

The hamburger (three-line) button in the top-right corner opens the main menu dropdown. From here you can access:

Help Documentation — the full searchable reference for every tool and panel.
Guides — the page you're reading now, covering every feature in expanded written form.
Tours — the in-app spotlight tour system, which lets you walk through any feature interactively.
Changelog — a running list of every update and fix across Buildopia's history.
My Builds — a second route to the My Builds panel, same as the top-bar button.
Community Builds — a second route to the community panel, same as the top-bar button.
Legal pages — Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, and Cookie Policy.

The main menu closes automatically when you click away from it, or you can press Escape at any time to dismiss it.

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