Beam Bench Docs

Settings, Display

App appearance, workspace background, antialiasing, fill rendering, motion, and scroll behavior.

The Display tab controls the Beam Bench app appearance, how the canvas renders, and how the mouse wheel behaves.

Open it from Edit → Settings or Ctrl+,.

Beam Bench using Light appearance with Display settings open. Light appearance changes the app interface while the workspace background remains independently configurable.

Fields

Appearance

The App appearance select offers three options:

  • System: follows the operating system's light or dark preference and updates when that preference changes.
  • Light: uses the light interface.
  • Dark: uses the dark interface.

Default: Dark.

This setting controls menus, toolbars, panels, dialogs, controls, scrollbars, and supported window chrome. It does not change the drawing workspace background, artwork colors, previews, exports, or printing.

On Linux, the Beam Bench interface follows this setting. Window decorations can still depend on the desktop environment and window manager.

Dark workspace background

Toggle. When on, the canvas background is dark. When off, it is light. This setting is independent of App appearance.

Default: on.

When to change: light background is useful for projects that will be screenshot-shared or projected, where contrast against an audience reading the screen matters.

Antialiasing

Toggle. When on, vector paths render with edge smoothing.

Default: on.

Turn off only if performance on a very large project is unacceptable and visual quality does not matter.

Filled rendering

Toggle. When on, fillable shapes (rectangles, ellipses, closed paths) render with their fill color in addition to their outline. When off, the canvas shows wireframe only.

Default: on.

The Alt+Shift+W hotkey toggles wireframe / filled on demand without changing this default.

Reduce motion

Toggle. When on, Beam Bench reduces or removes animated transitions (panel docking animations, marching-ants selection ant pulse, etc.).

Default: respects the OS-level reduce-motion preference where supported.

Turn on if motion bothers you or if you are recording screen captures and want a still UI.

Scroll wheel

Select. Options: Zoom / Pan.

Controls the default behavior of the mouse scroll wheel on the canvas.

  • Zoom (default), scroll zooms; Ctrl+scroll pans.
  • Pan: scroll pans; Ctrl+scroll zooms.

Pick whichever matches your hands. Trackpad users often prefer Pan.

Where these settings live

Same as Settings, General, in the app preferences directory. Changes apply after you click Save. Cancel leaves the active appearance and display settings unchanged.

On this page

FieldsAppearanceDark workspace backgroundAntialiasingFilled renderingReduce motionScroll wheelWhere these settings liveRelated